Pin To or Not to Pin To, That is the Question

Ok, I've been using this utility long enough to know this, but my brain has
gone fuzzy.

As the Windows (7 x64) context menu "Pin To Start Menu" assigns the shortcut
into:

...\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User
Pinned\StartMenu

...why doesn't Classic Start read this folder for its shortcuts?

Or have I disabled something I shouldn't have?

Maybe because MRU and pinned lists of Classic Start menu are different and
independent of Windows Start menu. The only shared locations are per-user and
all users Programs menu. You can put any program shortcut in
%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu to "pin" it to the Classic Start
menu.

Well, yes, I've using the drag-and-drop method, but that's the whole point of
the question: Why NOT use the "User Pinned\StartMenu"? By reading the "other"
shared (program) folder shortcuts, CS is hardly "independent" from the
standard Windows Start menu, so why render the "Pin to" context menu
pointless?

I suppose there might be some vague benefit to having two different start menu
shortcut lists (standard and CS), but I can't imagine why. If anything I spend
more time intentionally making them both identical (as far as shortcuts are
concerned), so it strikes me as odd.

So this is intentional? (Sorry to keep asking the same question over and over,
but I really don't get the reasoning here.)

Would you at least consider a setting to "Twin with the windows menu" so CS
would read this folder? I would assume there'd be more users asking why Pin-To
doesn't work...

That's not what you get on Vista - when you pin a program it only affects the
new menu, not the classic menu. So even the developers of the original classic
menu have decided to keep the two menus separate. Each has its own independent
pinning and sorting.

One of the reasons is that the start menu shows the contents of the Start Menu
folder in its top level. The new menu combines the contents of the Start Menu
folder and the Programs folder into the All Programs menu, which frees the top
level for other things like pinned programs. If you add pinned programs to the
classic menu you will get 3 groups of shortcuts competing for the same area:
- the Start Menu items
- the MRU items
- the pinned items
It will be one big mess.

So no, I don't like the idea and it will never happen. The start menu is
trying to improve how quickly you start programs, not necessarily how quickly
you set it up. Since the current workaround only takes a second to drag/drop,
it is good enough.

And finally, the pinning seems to be working differently on Vista, because I
don't see a User Pinned folder inside my Quick Launch folder. I don't plan to
reverse-engineer yet another system.

Hmm, thanks for the explanation - though the day-to-day impracticality of it
seems more alienating than inviting to new users, but such is life.

In the interests of a work-around, for those who are interested, a free shell
extension called FileMenu Tools
allows one to disable the default "Pin To" context menu entry (as in this
instance it's now superfluous), and the user can easily define a new context
menu entry to copy the selected shortcut to a "more CS friendly" folder - thus
achieving the desired end result. (To copy to both folders for true syncing, I
think one would need to invoke a batch file, but you can't have everything.)

FileMenu Tools is free, unobtrusive, x64 compatible, and fully customisable.
And bloody useful.

Thanks again - at least now I'm clear that I didn't accidentally screw
something up.

There can be an option to use %appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick
Launch\User Pinned\StartMenu as the path for items shown above Programs/MRU
instead of %programdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start menu. Some users would be
pleased to have a consistent pinned list.

Here is what you can do with "Send To" similar to "Pin to Start Menu" option:
(This method may be applied to SHORTCUTS only, not on the actual files (see
explanation at the end "THE PROBLEM" to know why))

FYI: The shortcuts created by dragging-and-dropping in CS start menu, which
users want to show in the Classic Shell start menu, can be found at
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
folder

1. Now open Run dialog box, and enter
   shell:sendto

2. Right click in empty area to open its popup menu. Select New -> Shortcut option from menu.

3. Now enter
   C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
   (replace the %USERNAME% with whatever your login user name is)
   and finish the wizard.

Now if you want to "Pin" an item to CS start menu, right-click on it, select
"Send to" and select "Start Menu" option.
The item will be pinned to Start Menu.

THE PROBLEM
Beware that this method doesn't work the SAME as "Pin to Start Menu", it is a
SIMILAR method. The "Pin to Start Menu" option creates a shortcut but the
problem with this (Send to) method is that, when you send an item using "Send
to" command, the item itself actually sent to the Start Menu folder instead of
it's shortcut. So, if you right-click on an executable file in a "Program
Files" folder and send it to the "Start Menu" using "Send to", the executable
file itself get copied to that location, and as a result, if you click on the
item from the Start Menu, it may show errors (depending on the program).

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO:
So what you should do is, right click on any SHORTCUT from the start menu and
then select "Send to" -> "Start Menu". Now the shortcut will be sent to the
start menu.