Can't pin anything to start menu? and start menu search results?

Either the Windows 10 start menu really sucks or I am using it wrong. I am used to the StartisBack/Windows 7 menu where you can pin anything and all applications will come up in search results. In the Windows 10 menu, I can't pin anything to the start menu that's not already in the menu. So if I want to drag a shortcut from the desktop, a file from somewhere, or a folder, it will not allow me to pin it. Also right clicking on an item anywhere and selecting "Pin to Start" does nothing. Is this the standard behavior or is something wrong with my setup?

Also, the start menu search does not bring up the majority of the non-metro programs installed on my system. Most of them are not even in the "All Apps" list. If I don't have shortcuts on my desktop, the only way to access them is to navigate to the Program Files folder and run the exe from there. This is terrible.

Hey unkellsam! The behaviour is *somewhat* similar for me. When I select "pin to start", it does get pinned, but as a tile. To my knowledge, it's not possible to pin stuff to the left side of the start menu.

As for searching for apps... Same for me! I installed Win10 on my gf's PC and there, it shows search results from apps. Hers was an upgrade, mine was upgrade + subsequent clean installation. I found out about the apps search bug after the clean install.

Not sure if this helps, but perhaps comparing our settings gets us closer to the solution. Also, I found this thread, which is about the app search problem and it's pretty long, so we're not alone!

Start menu search not finding applications? - Windows 10 Forums

Have not yet read it, though.

mrmatteastwood said:

Hey unkellsam! The behaviour is *somewhat* similar for me. When I select "pin to start", it does get pinned, but as a tile. To my knowledge, it's not possible to pin stuff to the left side of the start menu.

As for searching for apps... Same for me! I installed Win10 on my gf's PC and there, it shows search results from apps. Hers was an upgrade, mine was upgrade + subsequent clean installation. I found out about the apps search bug after the clean install.

Not sure if this helps, but perhaps comparing our settings gets us closer to the solution. Also, I found this thread, which is about the app search problem and it's pretty long, so we're not alone!

Start menu search not finding applications? - Windows 10 Forums

Have not yet read it, though.

Thanks, I'll read through that thread. What kind of things are you able to pin to your start menu? Can you pin files (document, pictures, etc.) as well as application shortcuts? What about folders? Can you pin these from anywhere in explorer or the desktop? I can't do any of the above.

Hmm. I'm in the office right now, so I cannot check my home PC, but I'm almost certain that only apps can be pinned to the start menu though. It was that way in previous Windows versions, right?

The only thing that I find where we seem to be losing some functionality is that in the "All Apps" view, which was "All Programs" in Win7, we can't mess around with that. That's where we used to be able to organize folders, create/copy/move files, etc. and I'm not sure Win10 still lets us do that.

That part bugs me a bit... It's nice to have everything organized alphabetically and in one big list, but it's bound to get a bit messy with programs creating folders and links as they please. Some have their own folders which then only contain one single shortcut, and others place a shortcut straight in the root...