Microsoft has a nice little page about how to do some basic arranging of items on the Start Screen at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows-8/start-screen-tutorial – it talks about basic pinning, seeing all apps and how to create, name and move groups.
To rename or change the icon of a pinned item you can follow the instructions on http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/31552-start-screen-tiles-change-icon-name-windows-8-a.html.
Right click on the tile you want to rename.
Left click on “open file location”
The file’s shortcut will appear in Windows Explorer.
Click on the text to change the name, or right-click it and click “rename.”
The new name will apply to the tile as well as the file.
To change the icon right-click it and select “properties” and change the icon
To get some more items pinned than the apps that create shortcuts and folders you need some extra help.
It can be done manually one by one or you can install a registry setting that will allow you to pin pretty much everything from your file explorer.
The manual way is nicely described at http://www.askvg.com/start-screen-pinner-freeware-to-pin-files-folders-and-program-shortcuts-to-windows-8-start-screen/ as Method 1. Methods 2 and 3 on that page don’t seem to work for Windows 8.1.
1. First of all right-click on the file which you want to pin to Start Screen and select “Create shortcut” option to create a shortcut of the file.
2. Now copy and paste following text in RUN dialog box and press Enter:
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\
It’ll open the classic “Start Menu” folder which is still used to store Start Screen shortcuts similar to previous Windows versions.
3. Now cut the file shortcut which you created in step 1 and paste it in “Start Menu” folder which you opened in step 2.
4. Now go to Start Screen and press “Ctrl+Tab” keys together to show “All Apps” page.
5. Here you’ll see the file shortcut which you created earlier. Right-click on the file shortcut and click on “Pin to Start” option.
That’s it. It’ll immediately pin the file shortcut to Start Screen.
NOTE: If the shortcut doesn’t appear in “All Apps” screen, try to move the shortcut from “Start Menu” folder to “Start Menu\Programs” folder.
At http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-add-the-pin-to-start-screen-menu-item-to-all-files-in-windows-8/ is a description of a registry file to have the “Pin to Start” available for almost any item.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\*] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\*\shellex] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\PintoStartScreen] @="{470C0EBD-5D73-4d58-9CED-E91E22E23282}" [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\AllFileSystemObjects] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\AllFileSystemObjects\shellex] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\AllFileSystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\AllFileSystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\PintoStartScreen] @="{470C0EBD-5D73-4d58-9CED-E91E22E23282}"