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Afer upgrading to Win 10, I was trying to add shortcuts of my programs to the "all apps" start menu section through copying the program shortcuts to %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs. This worked with most of the apps but it seems that windows refused to make this work for some ones, mainly portable ones, instead of being added to the "all apps" section some of the apps just get pinned to the start menu.

The question here would be how to avoid shortcuts get pinned to start menu when I just want to add it to the "all apps" section?

I really checked tons of webpages trying to found a solution to this and just can't found anything to solve this bug (they just answered how to add a shortcut in the most common case but doesn't tell what to do when that method fails). It was just by accident that I could find a solution, That's why I added this question to the site which I'm going to answer myself just to share this little trick.

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3 Answers 3

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  1. Create a shortcut to the program you want to add to "all apps" using right click over the program exe file and select send to/desktop(create shortcut). Rename the shortcut if you want.

  2. Move that shortcut to C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs. At this point most apps should appear on "all apps" start menu section, but if the apps just get pinned to the start menu, continue with the next steps.

  3. Create a temporary copy of the program exe file in the same folder where the real program exe file is located.

  4. Create a shortcut to the new created exe copy using right click over this file and selecting send to/desktop(create shortcut) and here is the trick, once the shortcut is created, rename it so it has the same name that the real shortcut to the program has, once renamed move this shortcut to C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs overwriting the real shortcut that is in there.

  5. Now delete this shortcut file that we just copied (seems silly but just believe me, this works)

  6. Once again create a shortcut of the real program exe file with send to/desktop(create shortcut) and rename it so it has the same name than it had before, once this is done move the shortcut to C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

  7. Open start menu, wait a second, scroll if necessary and the shortcut should be there now! You can delete the temp copy of the program exe file now.

Additionally if you want to also pin to program to the start menu, it shouldn't give you any problems now.

Note: This trick worked on Windows 10 Version 1607

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  • "Temporal copy"? What is a temporal copy? Do you mean the time and the date of the file must change? (i.e. "temporal" = "time and date"?)
    – user477799
    Commented Jan 8, 2017 at 13:33
  • I'm sorry, English is not my first language, No, I didn't mean that, I mean that you just need to make a copy that you can delete later, I guess "temporary" is the word I was trying to use
    – sir psycho sexy
    Commented Jan 9, 2017 at 9:01
  • For me the place to move the shortcut is C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
    – Lorents
    Commented Nov 28, 2023 at 17:01
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Just right-click the executable in its folder, drag (with the right mouse button down) to the Desktop and select Create shortcuts here.

Create shortcuts here

Then cut and paste that shortcut into %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs. You'll need to give permission to move the shortcut to that folder.

Apparently this is a "security" measure in Windows 10, making one do a two-step to add to that menu.

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  • The idea of the question was to explain what to do when that method doesn't work (in some particular cases, for example with portable apps), thanks for the answer anyway
    – sir psycho sexy
    Commented Jan 8, 2017 at 5:39
  • Interesting -- I've never had a problem creating shortcuts for portable apps (e.g. Nirsoft's and SysInternals) or for installed apps (through EXE or MSI) using that two-step approach. Are you running as Administrator when creating them? You might need to raise your privilege level.
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Jan 8, 2017 at 17:33
  • yes, I am an administrator and that didn't work, but don't worry I just made this post to answer it myself, because I discovered this trick and just want to share it.
    – sir psycho sexy
    Commented Jan 9, 2017 at 8:58
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Probably there is a bug in the future which tries to detect duplicates. I could work around like this:

  1. Create a short cut in %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
  2. Check the start menu. A tile appears. The shortcut can't be found via the Windows Search.
  3. Go to the properties of the shortcut.
  4. Add a space and a dash at the end of the Target text box. E. g.: "C:\Program Files\Example\Example.exe" -
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