Are you a power user of command prompt? Do you want to pin it to Windows Start menu? Well, you can do this with the Windows Shortcut option. In this post, I am going to explain the steps that will help you to pin command prompt with admin rights to Windows start menu.
The command prompt is one of the most powerful Windows tools, and almost everyone is using it for their day to day activities. We have already posted an article on How To Create A Keyboard Shortcut To Run Command Prompt With Admin Rights?.
Windows by default won’t add this tool to the start menu, and you may have to get into it through start menu search or with run command. But this simple workaround will help you to pin the CMD to either start menu or the taskbar, and you can easily access it in just a single click. Let us discuss the steps in detail.
Note: This similar method will also work in all the other versions of Windows such as Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows XP. For this tutorial purpose, I am using Windows 7 PC.
Steps To Pin Command Prompt With Admin Rights To Windows Start Menu:
Step 1: To get started, first you need to create a Shortcut on your desktop. Right click on the Desktop and select New -> Shortcut from the context menu.
Step 2: This will now open the “Create Shortcut” wizard as shown below.
Step 3: In the wizard, enter the location given below in the “Type the location of the item:” text box, and click on “Next“.
C:/Windows/System32/cmd.exe
Step 4: Now in the next screen, you have to mention the Name for the shortcut. For this tutorial purpose, I am going to name the shortcut as “CMD.”
Enter your desired name in “Type a name for this shortcut:” text box and click “Finish“.
Step 5: The shortcut for opening the Command Prompt will be created on your desktop now. To allow admin access, right-click on the created shortcut and select Properties from the context menu.
Step 6: In the properties window, navigate to the Shortcut tab and click “Advanced” to open the Advanced Properties.
Step 7: Select the check box “Run as administrator” and click OK to exit the Advanced Properties window.
Step 8: Click Apply and then click OK to exit the Properties Window.
Step 9: Now the shortcut is ready to open command prompt with admin rights. To pin it to the Start Menu right-click on the shortcut and select Pin To Shortcut.
Note: You can also select Pin To Taskbar from the right-click context menu, if you wish to pin the command prompt to your windows taskbar.
That’s it. You have now successfully pinned the command prompt with Admin rights to your Windows start menu.
If you encounter any issues while following this tutorial, do let me know using the comments section below.
I tried this with Windows 10 Pro v1703. It seems that, as long as the shortcut “Command Prompt” exists in C:\Users\[useraccount]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\System Tools, I cannot Pin To Start the “CMD” shortcut created on the Desktop with admin rights. If I do try to Pin to Start the “CMD” shortcut, I get “Command Prompt” on the tile, and it does not have admin rights. If I remove the “Command Prompt” shortcut from the above directory, I can Pin to Start the CMD shortcut on the Desktop, and it does have admin rights. However, at that point, I can no longer use the Start Menu (or Cortana) to search for the standard Command Prompt. I can rename the shortcut in the directory above (e.g., “Command Promptxx”), but then Cortana or Start Menu search will only hit on that new name, and if I try to Pin to Start my CMD shortcut, it shows up as “Command Promptxx” on the tile without admin rights.
Bottom line is that it appears that you cannot Pin to Start a Command Prompt without losing Cortana search ability on the originally named app. Plus, I never saw it in the app list, only on a tile.
Please let me know if you get different results. I have tried this on two different PCs with same version of Windows 10. Perhaps the Windows 7 version you use in your tutorial behaves differently than Windows 10, especially in regards to the newer “tile” paradigm.
P.S. You say Pin to Shortcut in your article, but I understood the meaning as Pin to Start.