Windows – Enable Remote Desktops Recent Connection List (jump list)

OK I did a little playing.

If you give your user write access to the HOSTS file (dangerous if malware runs as you) you can then create a hardlink to the file (as admin) using a .txt extension that you can edit.

Open a cmd prompt as Administrator and use FSUtil to make a hardlink in a folder you have full access to (like your desktop):

fsutil hardlink create C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Desktop\PinnableHosts.txt C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.

You can then open "PinnableHosts.txt" in Notepad and when you edit it, the changes will be reflected in your HOSTS file (and vise versa, since they're linked).

It will (should) then be in the 'recent list' for Notepad, and therefore available to be pinned.

HTH.

You said that you dragged the bookmark star. That is not the correct way to drag a bookmark in Chrome. Instead, drag the globe icon to the left of the Omnibar.

Dragging items to the taskbar to pin them only works for items that have an associated program. For example, create a file name test.blahbloofoobar (or something) and drag it to the taskbar. You’ll notice that the cursor changes to the not allowed/valid cursor and it doesn’t pin. Now rename the file to test.txt and repeat. It should now pin the program associated with text files (defaults to Notepad) to the taskbar and pin that specific file as well.

Try dragging a bookmark to the desktop, then drag it to the taskbar. Try creating a dummy file named test.url and drag that to the taskbar. If neither works, then try (re-)setting Chrome as your default browser: Wrench->Options->Basics->Make…default… (consider rebooting afterwards).