How to add new item to the Windows 10 "All Apps" section

Question

I want to add a new item (in this particular case a shortcut to Putty SSH client) to my Windows 10's All Apps section.

I have already found out that I can "Pin to Start" any item, however, this will only create a new tile on the right side of the Start Menu and won't add any new item to All Apps. Thus, pressing Win and typing "putty" won't return any result.

Creating a new shortcut and adding it to shell:start menu has the same effect as pinning to Start, so it's not a solution.

Note: this question might look the same, but the accepted answer doesn't apply to my requirements as I need the item to be searchable, and not only a new tile.

Note 2: I can confirm that after waiting several hours for Windows to reindex its index I manually rebuilt the whole index, but putty still can't be found neither in search results nor in "All Apps" list.

Answer to that question seems to be correct. The item will be a regular Start item, just like any other, and thus will be searchable. You may have to wait a few minutes for Windows to index it. — gronostaj, Aug 03 '15 at 12:38
I have added this shortcut hours ago. Since then I had a restart, but still no cigar. Indexing option says "Indexing complete" — belidzs, Aug 03 '15 at 12:59
I had this problem too and eventually discovered that "Pin to Start" breaks Search for that item, even after un-pinning it, adding a shortcut manually and re-building the index. The fix is to unpin the shortcut, rename the app directory, create a shortcut manually and then revert the name change. Writeup here. Then it shows in All Apps and can be searched for. — mgiuffrida, Jan 28 '17 at 22:36

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 11 '17 at 15:01

9

It is automatically added when you install new applications. To add manually put folders here

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\

You can also try this location:

C:\Users\ YOUR_ID\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\

edited Jan 11 '17 at 15:01

Jess

955

answered Aug 03 '15 at 16:02

Aoyon Nasif

114

Thanks! Creating a new folder inside Programs finally did the trick. – belidzs Aug 04 '15 at 17:06
9

This does not work for me – David Faivre Oct 05 '15 at 14:41
Neither does it for me... – Ruben Jan 11 '16 at 19:29
After adding a shortcut to this path, nothing came up in the search. But after clicking the All apps button, and seeing it was there under Recently added in the top - and also under its respective letter - it seemed to index it, because it then turned up in searches. – Aske B. Sep 15 '16 at 20:04
First one did the job for me. Thanks a lot. – Suraj Jain Sep 30 '17 at 05:53

How to add new item to the Windows 10 "All Apps" section

1 Answers1