Summary
Information on why programmatic pinning to the Start Menu or Taskbar is not allowedSynopsis
This article provides information on why Microsoft does not permit programmatic pinning icons/shortcuts to the Start Menu or Taskbar.Discussion
As mentioned in this MSDN article, Microsoft has stated that only the user can further pin applications to the taskbar and that programmatic pinning by an application is not permitted.Microsoft's intention is to only allow the user to put their favorite icons to the pin list, and it is not a place for a program to decide to pin itself. This is further explained in this blog post by Microsoft's Raymond Chen.
Additional Information
In Windows 8, Microsoft allowed programmatic pinning to the Metro Start Screen. This feature is reflected in InstallShield with the setting mentioned here. However, this is no longer the case for Windows 8.1 and later. More information can be found here:Unable to Pin Shortcut to Windows 8.1 Startscreen during Installation
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