Even though Microsoft may have ruffled some feathers with its latest redesign of the Windows 10 start menu, luckily the engineers behind it were smart enough to make it highly malleable and customizable at the same time, just in case users wanted to add some flair of their own.
One way to get your Start menu to feel a little more like home is to add links to some of your favorite sites for quick and easy access from your desktop or a tablet, but the process is actually a little more complicated than your standard click-and-drag operation.
Shortcut Linking With Edge
To start, you should know that if you already use Microsoft’s own Edge browsers, getting a link from your browser and into the Start menu is pretty simple.
Select “Pin to Start” from the drop-down menu, and you’re done!
The icon will now appear as a shortcut in your live tiles each time you go to open your Start menu.
Using a Different Browser
To start, (no matter the browser), visit the site you want to create a shortcut of and wait for it to finish loading. Once the page is up, you’ll see a small icon next to it in the address bar (highlighted below):
Drag this icon to your desktop, where a shortcut will automatically pop up.
Once the shortcut appears, right-click the icon and select “Copy” from the drop-down menu:
Next, navigate down to the Start menu, and using the search bar, start a “Run” box by selecting it from the following menu:
Once Run is up, type “shell:programs” into the available field:
From here, right-click in the window that pops up, being sure not to accidentally click any other folders or icons in the process:
Choose “Paste” from the drop-down menu.
After this, the icon will be buried somewhere in the “All Apps” section of your Start menu.
Dig it out from here (look for the first letter of the site’s name if your list is sorted alphabetically), and simply drag it over from the apps section into your tiles to get it to stick.
Once dragged you can position it however you like on the menu, or even change the size of the tile using our handy guide found here.
It’s something you’ve probably been doing with your phone for years, but actually getting a link to stick to your Start menu isn’t as easy as you might think.
Luckily, Windows 10 is still a flexible enough operating system with plenty of unique workarounds that can always get you to your intended result!
