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How can I place a Desktop App shortcut on the Windows 8 Start screen without using an installer?

My Desktop Application is just a single exe file. For reasons that aren't important, I can't use an installer which would add an icon to the Windows 8 Start screen. Can one be added programatically with C#?
Thanks

If you right click on the exe you can click pin-to start
This worked for my example in the image, which is a stand-alone exe without any sort of installation. It will then appear on the start bar.
Hope this helps.
EDIT: I realized after that you said programmatically.
It looks like a link to the start page is put in C:\Users[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
So perhaps you could tell it to deposit a short cut there?
EDIT 2 this previous question may also be helpful: Creating application shortcut in a directory. It is in C#

Take a look at the code samples for enabling desktop notifications, a prerequisite of which is the existence of a shortcut installed to the Start screen. The sample is C++ w/COM, but you should be able to incorporate this small bit into a C# app (or rewrite the sample code in C# directly).

Setting C# console application location to a secondary screen

Overview: I am working on a project which involves a WCF and multiple types of clients. I have created several Test clients and I have a WCF which is hosted in a console app.
This results in me having multiple application windows (I currently have 4) when debugging and every time I run them I have to arrange them on multiple screens (I have 2).
Question: I wonder is there a way to set a position of Console application to the secondary screen without a need to drag it all the time.

Move the console to the wanted screen. Go to properties. Note the location. Use that.

I think that you'll find that the answer given on this thread will cover you.
It'll mean saving the position of the console window when it closes and also checking that the position is within the displayable area of the desktop on startup, but it demonstrates how to position the console window for both console applications and windows forms ones.

Window emitting a sound when I try to restore it from the taskbar

I'm working on a rather big project with my team and after a while, we struck into a big problem.
Infact when we minimize the main window of the application, clicking on the taskbar to restore it results in a "bing" sound (the one that windows uses when you are trying to interact with a background window when a modal dialog is opened on it). I can't restore the window except if I press ENTER button (after obviusly clicking on it).
We are using XNA to render something inside a WindowsFormsHost component in our WPF application and the problem comes out when we change something that is not connected directly with wpf (something inside the rendering engine, so it works only with XNA).
I can't post any code because I don't own any rights of it and would be meaningless because the project is enough big.
So my question is: what are the things that can produce a problem like this one (unable to restore window sound) when you click on the taskbar?
At least I can understand where to search for this bug, because I don't even understand where I shall dirt my hands in.
Important notes: I'm using a splash screen and the problems come up when I do something on a second window (so not directly the main one) which is not modal
Thanks for any suggestion

We solved the problem by finding out that there is a bug with an external component that we used inside our application. Still I don't understand how this bug has been created, if someone has a better answer I'll mark it.

Reset Taskbar Flash in C#

I have an application where the taskbar flashes if an event has occurred. This is working perfectly, and was relatively easy to implement using a Win32 API described below:
http://blogs.x2line.com/al/archive/2008/04/19/3392.aspx
However, when I stop the flashing, sometimes the application is stuck in the "highlighted" state in the taskbar. This only gets reset by clicking on the application in the taskbar, minimizing it, then re-maximizing it. Is there a way to clear this from being highlighted without any user interaction?

Maybe instead of flashing it you could put an overlay icon on it - one line of code from C# with the Code Pack. Then when you want to clear it you could take the overlay icon away - again one line of code. Windows 7 only, however.

Can you post the code that you are using to "Stop" the flashing?
Have you also considered using a different flag such as:
// flash until the window comes to the foreground
FLASHW_TIMERNOFG = 12;
You will still need to click on the applicaiton to get the flash to stop, but you should not have to minimize then re-maximize the app to get the flash to stop.

You can include the FlashTaskbar snippet and use the following code
FlashWindow(Form.Handle, FlashMode.FLASHW_STOP)

Detect and Prevent Overlapping Windows in C#

Anyone know of an efficient way of detecting movement of any windows currently open on a windows system? I need to detect a window's movement, determine if it collides with my applications Form, and bump it out from underneath if necessary.
I know I can scan through an enumerated list and check each window -- but that is way to intensive to perform constantly.
Background:
I have a taskbar-esque application that docks on the side of a user's screen. When the "Always on Top" feature is on, maximized windows will take up the remaining available space without covering the toolbar, as expected.
However, if you drag a non-maximized window over the toolbar, the application goes behind the toolbar (also expected), but you can no longer grab onto the title bar to move it back -- the window is stuck unless you disable "Always on Top" and then move it. So, I want to bump the window out from underneath.

Although not a direct answer, one possible solution to this is to create your application as an application desktop toolbar rather than a regular window. From the docs:
An application desktop toolbar(also called an appbar) is a window that is similar to the Microsoft Windows taskbar. It is anchored to an edge of the screen... The system prevents other applications from using the desktop area occupied by an appbar. (emphasis added)
This may not be a great fit for your scenario because it is oriented towards COM and unmanaged code rather than managed apps: however see this CodeProject article for info about using this feature from C#.
Failing that, you could try installing a hook (see SetWindowsHookEx) and listening for move messages but this is pretty low-level...

Try checking your PaintEventArgs ClipRectangle ..
(edit: and/or WindowFromPoint shooting match)

You can get notification of window movements using a CBT Hook: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms644977(VS.85).aspx

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dialog/FindWindow.aspx?msg=3262771
"FindWindow By Jörg Bausch"
Will get you the external (not your app's) window ID (IntPtr) the mouse went up over from within your C# application. For the desktop, and everything else on the desktop, it will return the same pointer (you can't distinguish, using this code, between as mouse-up on a folder, the desktop, the Recycle Bin).
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/globalhook.aspx
"Processing Global Mouse and Keyboard Hooks in C# By George Mamaladze"
Will allow you to create GlobalHook for keyboard and mouse-events in C#. I've used it recently in VS 2010 beta 2 : it is NOT USABLE compiled against FrameWork 4.0, but does compile and work okay against FrameWork 3.5 and lower. If you download only George's demo app, be aware the download doesn't include the required dll, and will fail when you launch the .exe file (which I have brought to George's attention).
I've never worked with a "desktop application toolbar;" I hope this is relevant.
best,