How can I pin Libraries to the Taskbar?

I've tried this again from a restart situation and can confirm that opening libraries via the left hand pane in File Explorer does not appear to cause these multiple entries. I tried around a dozen open and closes of Libraries this way. There was only one explorer.exe process showing that I could see.

When I use the shortcut and look in Resource Monitor at the same time I notice that each closing of the Library window adds a new entry of explorer.exe

These entries only seem to appear at the instant I hit close.

Posted together

Thanks for the quick replies. It is comforting to get confirmation that this is not an issue isolated to my own PC. I'm capable of causing enough of those without any help.

I'd still like to pin Libraries to the taskbar if anyone finds a better way. It's my opinion this has been blocked on purpose to manipulate people into using quick access.

FYI I'm still on 1703. The Fall update just hasn't got to me yet and I'm not forcing it.

There is actually a bit more weirdness to this. I created the shortcuts using the method in this thread for both my start menu shortcut and also the taskbar one.

The start menu shortcut has an 'uninstall' option which when clicked always take me to Audacity in installed programs list. However this is the shortcut that seems to work correctly and not open all these explorer tabs. Both shortcuts were created the same way at the same time when clean installing last week.

Brink said:

It's suppose to open a new process each time you click on the shortcut.

However, it should be closing the each process that you close as well. Did you refresh or open/close Task Manager to see if there may have just been a delay in refreshing it?

Just to confirm, some of the explorer processes had been open for several days.

Mooly said:

I created the shortcuts using the method in this thread for both my start menu shortcut and also the taskbar one.

Which method? You can pin Libraries to the start menu like normal, just right click it and choose that option in the context menu but not the taskbar.

Thanks for the info :) I'd honestly forgotten you could right click Libraries to add to the start menu. I think I would have used Shawns shortcut method, and then pinned the newly created desktop shortcut to the taskbar and start menu. Also added a custom icon as you can see.

I have everything arranged as I like but that info and extra links is great... I'll have a read at all that... thanks.

Another discovery. If I open and close libraries a few times to generate all these entries and then (say) just browse the web for a while and then go back into task manager/resource monitor for a peek then I find the entries have usually disappeared. It seems to take a few minutes for this to happen but they are going.

Eagle51 said:

Hey Sqrly,
You can create a Library Toolbar... Right Click on Taskbar > New Toolbar > Opens New Toolbar Choose Folder > Point it to your Library Folder.

So, I ended up going with the Library Toolbar as Eagle51 suggested. I made it wide enough to show all 6 of my libraries using large icons, turned off the text and titles and put it next to the windows button. I'm getting used to it.

On my system at least, and having looked more closely I'm not convinced there is a real issue. Yes, I get many instances of explorer.exe occurring but they are not using resources and they all disappear without me doing anything after a few minutes. For example there were six instances open a while ago when I looked, and now there is just one.