Windows 11 will not let you pin a folder to the taskbar, but a 30-second workaround does

I had half a dozen folders pinned to my Windows 10 taskbar, and the first time I tried to recreate that on Windows 11, I learned Microsoft had removed the option. Folders, drives, and Control Panel applets all lost their "Pin to taskbar" entry. The workaround takes about thirty seconds and pairs well with the command-line tools that fix Windows problems faster than clicking through Settings.

The fix is one word added to a shortcut's target

Windows draws a hard line between apps and file system objects on the taskbar, and only apps are allowed. The workaround leans on that distinction. Wrap the folder path in something Windows treats as an app, like explorer.exe, and the shortcut becomes pinnable.

Pick a folder you want pinned. Right-click it, choose Show more options > Send to > Desktop (create shortcut), and head to the desktop.

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Right-click the new shortcut, open Properties, and the Target field will show the folder's full path. This is where the one-word edit goes. Type explorer followed by a space before the folder path, click Apply, and Windows converts the shortcut into an Explorer-based target that opens the folder.

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The icon will switch to the generic File Explorer icon at this point, and this is the step I always forget. A row of identical File Explorer icons defeats the entire point of pinning. However, you can manually change this back to a folder icon (or any custom icon) by right-clicking the shortcut, selecting Properties > Shortcut tab > Change Icon, and browsing to imageres.dll or shell32.dll for standard folder visuals.

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Right-click the finished shortcut, choose Show more options > Pin to taskbar, and delete the desktop shortcut. The same procedure works for drives - start at This PC, right-click the drive, choose Show more options > Create shortcut, and continue from the Properties step.

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This PC needs a CLSID instead of a path

Here is where the basic workaround stops working. This PC, the Recycle Bin, and the classic Control Panel are not folders at all. Windows registers them as shell objects with unique CLSID identifiers, and a regular file system path can't point to them. The shortcut target has to address the shell namespace instead.

Right-click the desktop, choose New > Shortcut, and paste this string in the location field: explorer.exe shell:::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}. That long string is the CLSID for This PC, which opens its shell location through Explorer. Click Next, name the shortcut "This PC," and finish the wizard.

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Then the icon step. Right-click the new shortcut, open Properties, click Change Icon, and load imageres.dll in the same file path field used for the folder. This PC icon sits in a few positions. Apply the change, then pin it to the taskbar through the right-click menu and delete the desktop shortcut.

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The same pattern covers more than This PC. Swap the CLSID for {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} to pin Recycle Bin, or {26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683} for the Control Panel shell. All three icons live inside imageres.dll, so the change-icon step is identical for each.

Control Panel applets pin directly with a control command

Control Panel applets are the third pattern. Individual pages like Power Options, Sound, and Network Connections sit one layer below the Control Panel shell, and they need a different shortcut target than either folders or shell objects. They open through a small utility called control.exe, and once you wrap them in that, Windows pins them like any other app.

Create a desktop shortcut as before, but in the location field, type control powercfg.cpl for Power Options or control mmsys.cpl for Sound. The control command is how Windows opens classic applets internally, so the shortcut launches the applet directly rather than dropping you on the Control Panel home page.

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This is the section I get the most use out of, because Microsoft has spent the last few Windows 11 builds burying legacy applets behind extra clicks in Settings. control desk.cpl opens Display, control appwiz.cpl opens Uninstall a program, control ncpa.cpl opens Network Connections, and control timedate.cpl opens Date and Time.

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Change the icon through imageres.dll to keep things consistent across all your pinned shortcuts, then pin to the taskbar. Pinning the applet itself sidesteps the Settings hunt entirely and keeps the classic dialogs one click away.

The thumbnail preview is the one thing this workaround can't fix

There is one quirk this workaround can't fix, and I should mention it before you set up a row of pinned shortcuts. The workaround pins the icon, but it doesn't change how Windows tracks the running window. When you click a pinned folder, drive, or applet, Windows launches explorer.exe with an argument and treats the resulting window as a File Explorer instance.

You'll notice this in two ways. First, the hover-preview thumbnail attaches to the File Explorer icon on the taskbar rather than your pinned shortcut. Second, if you don't already have File Explorer pinned, a second File Explorer icon pops up next to the pinned folder while the window is open, then disappears once you close it.

No registry tweak or icon override fixes this. The behavior is rooted in how Windows groups taskbar windows by their underlying executable, and the workaround relies on that executable being explorer.exe. You can't have both the custom pinned icon and the matching thumbnail preview using the built-in tools.

If the split thumbnail is a dealbreaker, the only real fix is restoring the Windows 10 taskbar wholesale with a tool like ExplorerPatcher. That brings back native folder pinning and ungrouped windows, at the cost of replacing Microsoft's taskbar entirely. For most setups, I think the split thumbnail is worth living with.

A pinned taskbar is just the first cleanup

Once the taskbar is doing useful work, the rest of it deserves the same sweep. The Widgets button and the jump list clutter pile up the same way. The shell:::{CLSID} pattern from this guide also opens dozens of other hidden Windows locations, which makes it a good entry point to the next round of registry tweaks for a cleaner setup.