Feature Request Option to add profiles to the Windows Start Menu

[claudio4]

Allow creating profile based entries in the Windows Start Menu

This will allow the user to launch the specific profile that they want without the need to open the default one

A button in the profile setting adds an entry in the Windows Start Menu with the icon profile and name, this entry launcher the windows terminal in this profile instead of the default one

Maintainer Notes

SPEC REQUIRED

Specifier should build on work already done on #576, because I am betting that it'll be along the same path! (from @DHowett-MSFT)

[zadjii-msft]

This has little bits of #607 and #576 in it, but seems unique enough to warrant its own issue.

[kowalski7cc]

Maybe can be solved with ability to pin secondary tiles to start?
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/design/shell/tiles-and-notifications/secondary-tiles

[DHowett-MSFT]

Backlog, spec required, triaged.

[DHowett-MSFT]

Specifier should build on work already done on #576, because I am betting that it'll be along the same path!

[marveloo]

It would be great to be able to "Pin to Start" and "Pin to Taskbar" any profile we like. And then the profile opened via the Start (or Taskbar) tile should always open in a new window and the opened profile should become the default profile for this particular window, i.e. when I open a new tab in this window it should open the same profile.

[zadjii-msft]

For folks following this thread: A few releases ago, we added your profiles to the taskbar jumplist:

which had the side-effect of displaying them in the start menu search as well:

I'm leaving this issue open to specifically track allowing you to pin the profiles as Start Menu tiles as well. Thanks!

[HendersonSC]

FWIW, a similar functionality is possible using shortcuts and batch files. Probably doesn't meet everyone's needs,

example.bat
wt -w 1 -p example_profile

Then its just right click, new->shortcut. Target of cmd /c path/to/example.bat, next, finish. Right click new shortcut pin to {start/taskbar}. In my use case, this has the additional benefit of allowing for complicated terminal tabs, new windows, and passing raw commands, i.e. set local scope path, open ssh tunnel, etc. The limit is seemingly what the wt command can handle.

[claudio4]

FWIW, a similar functionality is possible using shortcuts and batch files. Probably doesn't meet everyone's needs,

example.bat
wt -w 1 -p example_profile

Then its just right click, new->shortcut. Target of cmd /c path/to/example.bat, next, finish. Right click new shortcut pin to {start/taskbar}. In my use case, this has the additional benefit of allowing for complicated terminal tabs, new windows, and passing raw commands, i.e. set local scope path, open ssh tunnel, etc. The limit is seemingly what the wt command can handle.

Yeah, I'm been using my handmade shortcut since the WT allowed for opening specific profiles from the command line. But I still think there is value in the WT creating the shortcuts with just the click of button instead of us doing the manual process.

BTW, You can put the command directly in the shortcut and skip the batch file enterally.

[zadjii-msft]

FWIW, since there aren't tiles in Windows 11's start menu anymore, I'd reckon it's highly unlikely we (the Terminal team) get around to this ourselves. The API doesn't seem terribly challenging to use, and it shouldn't be too hard to add a button to the Settings UI to activate this. If someone's passionate about adding the button for Windows 10, we'd still accept the PR. I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of where this landed on the priorities.