For Chrome you have the ability to create an extra individual shortcut to Chrome with your other profile
on the taskbar. You can open Chrome (default icon) and switch to another profile. When doing so Chrome creates another instance, separate from the default one. You can pin that separate instance to the taskbar as a second icon. That icon is the shortcut to Chrome for that profile.
Steps to reproduce:
- Open Chrome on the taskbar
- Click your profile-name at the upper-right (left from the close/minimize-buttons)
- Choose
Switch person
- Login with a different Google-account
- Now Chrome had created a second icon on the taskbar
- Right-click that icon and choose
Pin this program to taskbar
The second shortcut is located in the ImplicitAppShortcuts-folder of the User pinned-folder.
(extra tip and off-topic: When clicking the orb (Windows-start) you can type shell: user pinned
followed by enter to be taken directly to the correct folder. Here is a list of other interesting shell-shortcuts.)
Edit:
Of course these are not the only location where data is stored for the pinned application.
%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar %AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\StartMenu %AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\ImplicitAppShortcuts
For example the ordering is not in these folders. The order of the pinned applications (and jump-list/right-click) is in the registry here:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband\Favorites HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Taskband\FavoritesResolve
However this is a REG_BINARY value so changing the order or adding one isn't easily done in regedit.
(Some info here)
I haven't (yet) found a simple api to do this all.
Edit #2
Wow, it's actually quite easy to do with any program (without Windows API).
- Create a shortcut to a program and edit the target to include something like
/profile=1
or any other unique parameter for this program - It doesn't matter where you place the shortcut (it can be on the desktop) because it's temporary
- Start the program via the shortcut. Because it has a unique start-target it gets a new icon in the taskbar.
- Right-click the new icon and pin it to the taskbar
- You can delete the icon from the desktop