How to add any website to Windows 10's Start menu

[starbuck]

 

In Windows 10 you’ve got tons of choices for desktop programs, and apps from the Windows Store can be useful too. But there are still probably a few key webpages you turn to every day instead of a desktop program or modern UI app.

 

Wouldn’t you love to have those key sites available to you on the Windows 10 Start menu? Here’s how to do that.

 

The Edge way

 

 

Microsoft Edge in Windows 10 has pin-to-Start functionality built-in.

 

Open Microsoft Edge and then navigate to the page you want to add. In the upper right-hand corner, click the three horizontal dots, and then from the drop down menu select Pin this page to Start.

A pop-up window will appear asking you to confirm. Click Yes and you’ll find the site at the bottom of the live tile section in your Start menu.

 

The downside? This method is that links will only open in Edge. Fortunately, there's a way around that. If you want links to open in your default browser instead of Edge, you have to use a little bit of trickery, but nothing too complicated.

 

The non-Edge way

 

Open Internet Explorer and navigate to the webpage you want to add to Start. For our purposes, let’s say it’s Facebook.

 

Once you’re on Facebook, right-click in an open space on the site and select Create shortcut from the context menu. IE will then show a pop-up window asking if you want to create a desktop shortcut. Click Yes.

 

To do the same thing in Chrome and Firefox, go to the address bar and click-and-drag the icon to the left of “http,” and drop it on the desktop. The icon will either be a green lock, a rectangular piece of paper, or a globe.

 

Pro Tip: In my experience, you’ll generally get better looking icons using Internet Explorer for this step.

 

Next, right-click the desktop icon you just created and select Copy.

 

Add to Start

 

Now type “run” into the Cortana/search box. The top choice should be the Run desktop app.

 

 

Once Run opens, type in shell: programs, click OK, and an Explorer window will open.

 

Now just right-click in the main part of that window (be careful not to accidentally open a folder) and select Paste.

 

Your website is now in Start but it’s buried in the “All apps” list. To remedy this, just click Start >> All apps and scroll down to the listing in the alphabetical list. Since we’re doing Facebook we’ll look under “F”.

 

Once you find it, just click-and-drag it onto the live tiles (right) side of the Start menu and you’re done.

 

After you’ve added your webpages to Start, feel free to delete your shortcuts from the desktop.

 

The catch with websites using the non-Edge method is you can’t remove them from Start through the right-click context menu. Instead, you have to type shell: programs into Run and then delete the shortcuts in the Explorer window that opens.

 

 

Source:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3007760/windows/how-to-add-any-website-to-windows-10s-start-menu.html#tk.rss_windows

[allheart55 Cindy E]

Simple and easy instructions. Good find, Pete!

[AWS]

That's a great tip.

[Rachel]

Great, thanks!