how to add an exe to the start menu as a tile.

How do you do that?
Rt click the exe, click 'Pin to Start'.

Thank you. As a tile? Really? Wow!

You could try adding a shortcut to the template in one or other of the folders containing start menu shortcuts. Hopefully that would appear on the left side of the start menu.

Or you could right click a template file and see if it offers 'Pin to Start'. Or if the shortcut to it appears in the Start Menu, again, rt click and see if it offers 'Pin to Start'.

Or- simpler? - use a decent start menu replacement. Classic Shell start menu is valid for 1803, and new coders are recoding it for life after 1803.

Create a shortcut [you can use the normal shortcut wizard] with this as its property but using your own folder paths and template file name

Code:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\WINWORD.EXE" D:\Templates\Normal.dotm

This shortcut will open Word with a blank new file based on the given template.

- The path to your WinWord.exe file will vary from mine [Word 2007 on a 64 bit OS]
- The path to your template file will vary from mine & its name might also be different
- If your equivalent to my D:\Templates\Normal.dotm contains spaces then it must be enclosed in quotation marks - "D:\Templates\Normal.dotm"

This type of shortcut can be pinned to the Start menu [as a tile] & the TaskBar.

I thought that similar shortcuts were needed in Windows 7 to put individual files in the Start menu tree.

You do not need to clutter up your Desktop with icons. You can use TaskBar Toolbars instead.

Denis

Then do what I have suggested and you will get just that.
- Including the path to Word itself within the shortcut is merely a means of tricking Windows into allowing the shortcut to be a tile on the Start menu.
- The shortcut I described will, as I said, open a blank document based on your chosen template [just as if you had double-clicked directly on the template itself]

Just an aside
- You can change the built-in templates such as normal.dotx instead of creating extra ones.
- That would allow you to have your chosen template used whenever you run Word.
- Word Options also allows you to specify the location for your templates so you can bypass the built-in ones completely if you want to [Word, Options, Advanced, {right down the bottom} File locations, User templates].

Denis