Pin Steam adds your Steam games to Windows 8's start screen

The popular Steam gaming platform is not - yet - available as a Windows Store application. While you can install Steam on Windows 8 as a desktop application, you will notice that doing so won't add any of the games in your account to the start screen of the system.
I explained how you can manually add Steam game shortcuts to Windows 8's start screen a couple of days ago. You had to create a shortcut for the games that you want to add, move the shortcuts to the start menu, to find and pin the games to the start screen. That works well if you only need to add a couple of games, but if you want to add dozens or more, it may not be the best option.
Pin Steam is a commercial application for Windows 8 that adds the option to pin any Steam game to the start screen of the operating system. The application offers two features that may make it interesting to Steam users who work with the Windows 8 operating system.
- The pinning itself is faster and easier using Pin Steam
- You can customize the small and large tile for each game, and tiles usually look really good
A click on the application icon on the start screen opens a connect screen where you need to enter the Steam ID of your user account. All Steam games are then listed on a page without having to enter a password due to the fact that this is public information.
You can start games right from here with a left-click, or pin games to the start screen by right-clicking on the tiles instead. This opens the tile creation page where you can select a small tile from a list of available images. The wide logo is automatically selected by the application.
You are automatically taken back to the configuration page once you have made the selection here. Please note that the app makes no distinction between games that are installed and games that are not installed on the system. If you start a game that is not installed, you will get the installation dialog first in the Steam client.
Note that uninstalling the program will also remove all shortcuts from the start screen automatically.
I do not think I would pay the $1.49 for the app considering that I have already added my games to the start screen manually, and that I can launch any game from the desktop as well. Still, if you are using the start screen and Steam heavily, you may like what the application has to offer.
Steam Tile is an alternative that is also available for free in the Windows 8 Store. You need to link it to a Steam account when you run the app after installation which needs to be publicly accessible. The application displays instructions on how to verify that this is the case. Once done, it displays a list of all Steam games and their icons on the screen. A left-click allows you to pin any Steam game to the start screen of Windows using the icon displayed on that screen.
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Uhh, this has already been possible – I am not sure how but remember my brother telling me about it. I’m not a whatsapp user so not sure of the specifics, but something about sending the image as a file and somehow bypassing the default compression settings that are applied to inbound photos.
He has also used this to share movies to whatsapp groups, and files 1Gb+.
Like I said, I never used whatsapp, but I know 100% this isn’t a “brand new feature”, my brother literally showed me him doing it, like… 5 months ago?
Martin, what happened to those: 12 Comments (https://www.ghacks.net/chatgpt-gets-schooled-by-princeton-university/#comments). Is there a specific justifiable reason why they were deleted?
Hmm, it looks like the gHacks website database is faulty, and not populating threads with their relevant cosponsoring posts.
The page on ghacks this is on represents the best of why it has become so worthless, fill of click-bait junk that it’s about to be deleted from my ‘daily reads’.
It’s really like “Press Release as re-written by some d*ck for clicks…poorly.” And the subjects are laughable. Can’t wait for “How to search for files on Windows”.
> The page on ghacks this is on represents the best of why it has become so worthless, fill of click-bait junk…
Sadly, I have to agree.
Only Martin and Ashwin are worth subscribing to.
Especially Emre Çitak and Shaun are the worst ones.
If ghacks.net intended “Clickbait”, it would mark the end of Ghacks Technology News.
Ghacks doesn’t need crappy clickbaits. Clearly separate articles from newer authors (perhaps AIs and external sales person or external advertising man) as just “Advertisements”!
We, the subscribers of Ghacks, urge Martin to make a decision.
because nevermore wants to “monetize” on every aspect of human life…
“Threads” is like the Walmart of Social Media.
How hard can it be to clone a twitter version of that as well? They’re slow.
Yes, why not mention how large the HD files can be?
Why, not mention what version of WhatsApp is needed?
These omissions make the article feel so bare. If not complete.
Sorry posted on the wrong page.
such a long article for such a simple matter. Worthless article ! waste of time
I already do this by attaching them via the ‘Document’ option.
I don’t know what’s going on here at Ghacks but it’s obvious that something is broken, comments are being mixed whatever the article, I am unable to find some of my later posts neither. :S
Quoting the article,
“As users gain popularity, the value of their tokens may increase, allowing investors to reap rewards.”
Besides, beyond the thrill and privacy risks or not, the point is to know how you gain popularity, be it on social sites as everywhere in life. Is it by being authentic, by remaining faithful to ourselves or is it to have this particular skill which is to understand what a majority likes, just like politicians, those who’d deny to the maximum extent compatible with their ideological partnership, in order to grab as many of the voters they can?
I see the very concept of this Friend.tech as unhealthy, propagating what is already an increasing flaw : the quest for fame. I won’t be the only one to count himself out, definitely.
@John G. is right : my comment was posted on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/23/what-is-friend-tech/] and it appears there but as well here at [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/08/how-to-follow-everyone-on-threads/]
This has been lasting for several days. Fix it or at least provide some explanations if you don’t mind.
> Google Chrome is following in Safari’s footsteps by introducing a new feature that allows users to move the Chrome address bar to the bottom of the screen, enhancing user accessibility and interaction.
Firefox did this long before Safari.
Basically they’ll do anything except fair royalties.