Windows 8 Start Menu tile groups

Hi,

Are there any known plugins available to manage creating tile groups on the Windows 8 start menu?

Thanks!

Hm? I think simple CreateShortcut with $STARTMENU will create icon in Win8 start menu?

(I do not have Win8 - not tested.)

Hi, yes you're right - that will create a shortcut in the Windows Start Menu which you'll see if you use a 3rd party Start Button app to get the "old-style" start menu back in Win8, or even just create a toolbar to show the c:\programdata\....\Start Menu\Programs folder.

It will also add it to the Windows 8 tiled start menu, but as you can't have folders on the tile screen, your icons are placed on the far right after the myriad of other application icons you have installed. On the Win8 Start Menu my users report it's difficult finding the icon they need.

However, on Win8 Start Menu you can create groups of tiles (and even name them). I'd like to create a tile group for the icons my installer creates, and maybe also consider moving the tile group between the live tiles and the main application tiles if my users choose this.

The Win8 start menu tile configuration appears to be stored in the appsFolder.itemdata-ms file in c:\users\xxx\appdata\local\microsoft\windows.... so gonna need some sort of API to make changes to this. So... hoping someone is working on this =)

i have a problem with xp/w7-64 installer


in my code i have:


SetOutPath $INSTDIR
CreateDirectory "$SMPROGRAMS\programul"
CreateShortCut "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\Uninstall.lnk" "$INSTDIR\Uninstall.exe"
CreateShortCut "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\PRGMY.lnk" "$INSTDIR\PRGMY .exe"
CreateShortCut "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\Logs Folder.lnk" "$INSTDIR\Logs"
CreateShortCut "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\X.lnk" "$INSTDIR\X.exe"
CreateShortCut "$DESKTOP\programul.lnk" "$INSTDIR\PRGMY .exe"
[...]






Delete "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\Uninstall.lnk"
Delete "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\Logs Folder.lnk"
Delete "$DESKTOP\programul.lnk"
Delete "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\PRGMY.lnk"
Delete "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\X.lnk"


RMDir "$SMPROGRAMS\programul"



OK, in xp work fine, uninstaller remove all icons, including start, programs, "programul"..etc..

In w7/64 this shortcut are created in start>allprograms>programul but are not deleted to uninstall..

WHY?

and i have another question too..: how can setting the finish page to have a checkbox with "launch the program"?

Originally Posted by alibabavl64

SetOutPath $INSTDIR
CreateDirectory "$SMPROGRAMS\programul"
CreateShortCut "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\Uninstall.lnk" "$INSTDIR\Uninstall.exe"
CreateShortCut "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\PRGMY.lnk" "$INSTDIR\PRGMY .exe"
CreateShortCut "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\Logs Folder.lnk" "$INSTDIR\Logs"
CreateShortCut "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\X.lnk" "$INSTDIR\X.exe"
CreateShortCut "$DESKTOP\programul.lnk" "$INSTDIR\PRGMY .exe"
[...]
Delete "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\Uninstall.lnk"
Delete "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\Logs Folder.lnk"
Delete "$DESKTOP\programul.lnk"
Delete "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\PRGMY.lnk"
Delete "$SMPROGRAMS\programul\X.lnk"

RMDir "$SMPROGRAMS\programul"

I'm not using windows right now so I can't test it but I have the same code in some of my other installers and they work fine. Perhaps SetShellVarContext is being used?

Originally Posted by alibabavl64

how can setting the finish page to have a checkbox with "launch the program"?

Define this before inserting your finish page:
MUI_FINISHPAGE_RUN exe_file

Optional:
MUI_FINISHPAGE_RUN_NOTCHECKED

SetShellVarContext is not used in my code..

!define MUI_FINISHPAGE_RUN

!insertmacro MUI_PAGE_FINISH


!insertmacro MUI_FINISHPAGE_RUN "$INSTDIR\myprog .exe"
!insertmacro MUI_FINISHPAGE_RUN_TEXT "Run MyProg"


Is OK that?
I ask because i'm not at my pc....i wrote from another...

Put RequestExecutionLevel in your code...

@Anders...

I made this:
Right click on Uninstall.exe, run as administrator


The same...Start>programs folder remains..
I think
RequestExecutionLevel admin haven't effect..

but...RequestExecutionLevel admin in HMNIS edit..(on Win XP) have not specific colour, is black...
Like him effect is nothing..look in image...is black and the others commands are coloured..
For Run exec:

!define MUI_FINISHPAGE_RUN "$INSTDIR\myprog .exe"
!define MUI_FINISHPAGE_RUN_TEXT "Run MyProg"

Thank you!!!

but...RequestExecutionLevel admin in HMNIS edit..(on Win XP) have not specific colour, is black...
Like him effect is nothing..look in image...is black and the others commands are coloured..

This is a normal behaviour of HM NIS Editor because the last version was released before the "requestexecutionlevel" command was implemented in NSIS.

Originally Posted by Highcoder View Post

This is a normal behaviour of HM NIS Editor because the last version was released before the "requestexecutionlevel" command was implemented in NSIS.

There is a set of updated syntax files somewhere IIRC and I believe it is just a .ini file so it should not be hard to update for v3 as well...

A quick search found it up on the nsis wiki 😎. http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Syntax_F...or_HM_NIS_Edit

Does it work with Windows 8.1 Start Menu

The same code -> createshortcut $SMPROGRAMS (I am referring to ProgramMenuDir) ... does not work in Windows 8.1 as reported by one of my customer. This might have been because of Windows 8.1 rules newly added where they will not allow to add tiles to Start Menu programmatically. This has to be done by user manually.

Is this correct? Is there any other way to add tiles (shortcuts to exe) in Start Menu in Windows 8.1?

No, in 8.1 the user has to manually pin IIRC. Just continue to use $SMPROGRAMS, that is the official way to do it.