IE9 and dragging URL links to the desktop

If you have already installed Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) onto your PC, you might have noticed many new things and improvements.

One of these changes is the file format used when you drag a web site's icon from the address bar to a folder, say the desktop. In IE 8 and earlier, these shortcut files used the .url extension, but in IE 9 this has changed to a .website. This extension in turn is called a Pinned Site Shortcut.

The .website file is, just like the .url file, a regular text file with the old INI file format. Thus, it is easy to parse, and you could even write your own .NET/C#/PowerShell script to convert file formats back and forth. The only thing that changes in addition to the file format change, is the fact that IE 9 opens a new window for the just-dragged web site. Yes, this is to be expected as this is how "web sites as applications" behave, but somethings to get used to.

If you want to enable pinning and taskbar icons on your own web pages, follow the tips here.