How to Pin an Application to the Taskbar on a Secondary Display

multiple-monitorstaskbarwindows 8

I have "Show taskbar on all displays" set to enabled and taskbar buttons are set to show where the window is open. Under these settings, there are no pinned shortcuts on the secondary display; only currently open applications are shown.

I would like to be able to pin a separate set of applications to the secondary taskbar. I can't seem to find a way to do this. I have tried dragging a desktop shortcut to the taskbar, but the icon gets a red cross over it. I have also tried right-click for a "Pin this application" option, but none appear.

It looks to me like the only way to get any pinned programs on the secondary taskbar is to set "Show taskbar buttons on" to "All taskbars".

Is there any configuration option available or method to get pinned applications on the secondary taskbar?

Best Answer

This feature is not included in Windows 8. This is widely acknowledged in various articles:

In case you would like to pin a shortcut to main taskbar, yes this will work as it used to work on Windows 7, however you will not be able to pin a shortcut specifically to any non primary taskbar.

Windows 8 Multi Monitor
Pinning apps on the Taskbar only goes so far before it’s full… although it would be great if i could pin apps to the taskbar on my second monitor

How to live without the Windows 8 Start menu
However, choosing this option doesn't offer you the ability to pin the program to secondary taskbars.

Enable pinning in secondary Taskbars in windows 8

Free alternatives to include more shortcuts on the limited space of the primary taskbar includes using a Taskbar Toolbar, as discussed in How to live without the Windows 8 Start menu. You can also bring the start menu back, using a 3rd party application:

ViStart (free!)
Classic Shell (free!)
Pokki (free!)
StartMenu7 (free with pro version for sale)

A non-free way is using Actual Multiple Monitors, who say (quoted):

In Actual Multiple Monitors, you can have different sets of pinned applications on different monitors. You can pin an icon in any of the following ways:

via context menu command

via drag-n-drop of the application's shortcut

Unfortunately it costs $29.95, with a 30-day trial period. I could not find a free alternative, but hopefully there will be one soon.

Use at your own risk: It appears a link to the relevant site is not allowed (filtered) on Super User, and after investigating, Antivir found a possible trojan

Related Solutions

Windows – How to change the default applications pinned to the taskbar

If programming is an option, a solution might be to write a program that would run on the first user logon, and which will do the taskbar changes that you want.

For a .Net solution, see the article
Pin and Un-pin items to/from the Windows 7 taskbar
where a .cs file is attached that contains a class that can:

Figure out if a given executable is pinned to the taskbar
Un-pin it from the taskbar
Pin it back to the taskbar

The above article is based on another :
Pin Items to the Start Menu or Windows 7 Taskbar via Script
where a similar approach is described using vbs scripts.

Windows – Pin folders in Windows 8.1 taskbar

I came across that problem too. Here's a solution:

 1. Pin File Explorer to taskbar
 2. Create a standart shortcut to your folder on Desktop.
 3. Move newly created shortcut to C:/Users/Username/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/Quick Launch/User Pinned/TaskBar
 4. Remove "File Explorer" shortcut
 5. Name your shourtcut "File Explorer"

This is like replacing proper File Explorer shortcut with your folder shortcut.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows – How to change the default applications pinned to the taskbar

Windows – Pin folders in Windows 8.1 taskbar

Related Question