How to Pin Windows Update Icon to the Start menu and Taskbar in Windows 7

Pinning applications to the Start menu or Taskbar is a great way to access them quickly, especially the ones which you use frequently. However the Pin to.. option isn’t available for Windows Update and perhaps for some other special executables in Windows. To Pin Windows Update icon to the Start menu/Taskbar in Windows 7, here are some neat tricks:

Pin Windows Update to Start menu

Click Start, click All Programs.

Press and hold the SHIFT key down, right-click on “Windows Update” and select “Pin to Start Menu”

However, the context menu doesn’t show the Pin to Taskbar option whether you press the SHIFT key or not. To Pin WU to Taskbar, use these steps:

Pin Windows Update to Taskbar

Open C:\Windows\System32 folder.

Copy wuapp.exe to wuapp2.exe

Right-click wuapp2.exe and choose Pin to Taskbar

Now, to change the generic icon shown in the Pinned Taskbar item to a neat looking Windows Update icon, right-click on the Windows Update Pinned icon in the Taskbar, right-click Windows Update Application Launcher, and click Properties.



Click Change Icon…

Type in the following path in the icon picker dialog box, and press ENTER:

%SystemRoot%\system32\wucltux.dll

Select the Windows Update icon (Icon Index 0 – the first icon) from the list.

It’s that easy! Hope you liked this article.


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Ramesh Srinivasan is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a consecutive ten-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in the Windows Shell/Desktop Experience category, from 2003 to 2012. He loves to troubleshoot and write about Windows. Ramesh founded Winhelponline.com in 2005.

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