December 30th, 2014

How did that program manage to pin itself to my taskbar when I installed it?

Occasionally, somebody will notice that upon installing a program, it managed to pin itself to the taskbar. But just like there is no Pin­To­Start­Menu function, there is also no Pin­To­Taskbar function, and for the same reason: Because applications would abuse it and auto-pin themselves because they are so awesome, and so that the developer could get a nice bonus. In spite of these roadblocks, some applications manage to pin themselves to the taskbar anyway, typically by programmatically driving the shortcut context menu. The developer then collects their bonus and goes out and gets drunk.

There is no real way of blocking this behavior other than giving guidance not to do that. Customers who complain to the vendors about their presumptiveness may help. Scornful looks and ignoring them when they walk by the lunch table looking for a place to sit may also work. (But since they’re drunk, they may not care.)

Author

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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