Pinning items to left side of Start Menu?

TheMany · 13 Nov 2015

....referring to the huge blank space Microsoft has provided on the left side of the start menu below the "most used" programs and above the folders selected in the Personalization/Start settings.

Is this not customizable? Or has anyone figured out a workaround for this besides a third party program?

Every tutorial I could find on the internet indicates I should get a "Pin to Start Menu" when I drag a shortcut directly onto the Start button. But all I get is a "Link" icon. And when I drop the shortcut, it goes into oblivion.

JohnC · 13 Nov 2015

As far as I know that area is for newly installed apps. They also show up in all apps, etc. It just makes it easier to find when you install something new.

TheMany · 13 Nov 2015

Thanks, John. It just seems redundant. I can find newly installed programs by going to the all apps and looking for the word "New" next to them. And I usually know the name of the program I just installed.

The ability to pin was apparently in one of the releases prior to Windows 10 actual release. But if it's like the mail program (where they took out the accounts at the bottom left, and then put it back in an update) they'll do the same with this.

That blank area is just ridiculous. It populates with one newly installed program and then even that disappears after a while.

Maybe I could rent out that space.

You · 13 Nov 2015

Even turning off "Show recently added apps" here doesn't fix it:

Pinning items to left side of Start Menu?-settings.png

JohnC · 15 Nov 2015

I just stumbled on this: go to Settings >Personalization > Start >chose which Folders appear on start. You can turn on as many as you need to fill that space.

TheMany · 15 Nov 2015

John,

I appreciate your post, but I already knew about that. I've turned all of them on (all ten of them) and there's still several inches of blank space on my 1920x1200 monitor.

We just need to be able to pin programs of our choice in that area.

As I mentioned, they had that feature in a pre-release Insiders beta but took it out at the last minute for some unknown reason.

Thanks for looking though.

Edwin · 15 Nov 2015

TheMany said:

John,

I appreciate your post, but I already knew about that. I've turned all of them on (all ten of them) and there's still several inches of blank space on my 1920x1200 monitor.

We just need to be able to pin programs of our choice in that area.

As I mentioned, they had that feature in a pre-release Insiders beta but took it out at the last minute for some unknown reason.

Thanks for looking though.

I know it's not much but, if it helps, you can change the execution path of 6 of those entries:

Pinning items to left side of Start Menu?-000023.png

TheMany · 15 Nov 2015

Thanks, Edwin. I just tried it with My Music and only got a "Pin to Start" context menu.

I'll work on it some more, because I see you have one that says "Registry" which I assume means Regedit.exe.

But that'll help some.

caperjack · 15 Nov 2015

TheMany said:

John,

I appreciate your post, but I already knew about that. I've turned all of them on (all ten of them) and there's still several inches of blank space on my 1920x1200 monitor.

We just need to be able to pin programs of our choice in that area.

As I mentioned, they had that feature in a pre-release Insiders beta but took it out at the last minute for some unknown reason.

Thanks for looking though.

I think this is a big monitor issue and not a win10 issue,, no space extra on my Acer 10.1 screen

TheMany · 15 Nov 2015

caperjack,

Well... yes and no. Because I can collapse the Start menu until the space disappears, but what's the use in having a tiny menu on a large screen?

If it was designed properly, it would be customizable for any screen. And as I have stated several times in the thread, MS did have this function. So obviously someone there thought it a good idea.

Anyhow, I'm done with it. Thanks everyone for your help.