Editing the context menu. How to change the right click menu
Many people love the Windows operating system, and many of us grew up using it. But some casual PC users - or those who have just recently switched to Windows - often get confused when looking for information about some of the simple things that control Microsoft's operating system. One such graphical element is called the "Windows context menu", or "right-click menu".
Today we'll tell you not only about this integral element of the Windows experience, but also about a third-party application that allows you to add custom elements to the context menu.
So what is the Windows context menu?
In simple terms, it is a pop-up menu that appears when you right-click in any navigation area of the screen (hence the name “right-click menu”). The context menu can be accessed in folders, the taskbar, web browsers, and other GUI areas. The context menu is not exclusive to Windows, so you may have seen it on other operating systems, including Mac OS X or Linux.
Speaking about the appearance of the Windows context menu, it looks almost the same everywhere - only the elements inside it differ. For example, the screenshot below shows the context menu that opens when you right-click on the desktop to, say, customize the desktop background image in the Personalization window.
Typically, the context menu contains elements such as “View”, “Sort”, “Copy”, “Paste”, “Rename”, “Properties”, etc. Some of the menu items are context based. In other words, in one area of the operating system the context menu may contain some items, and in another – different ones. For example, the menu that pops up when you right-click on the taskbar will contain completely different items compared to the menu you see in the screenshot below.
Here's another simple example of the context menu that appears when you right-click on a folder:
Now that you know what the context menu is in Windows and how it works, let's look at a convenient and free application that makes it easy to customize the menu.
A portable application that allows you to add custom items to the "right-click menu" in Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, it was developed by Sergey Tkachenko (WinAero) - a well-known developer who is the author of many useful tools, including. The application is very convenient in the sense that the entire process of adding items to the context menu requires a few clicks from the user.
To get started, launch the application. The Context Menu Tuner interface consists of two different panels - the left one contains a list of supported commands, and the right one consists of Windows Explorer areas. To add a command, you need to select one of them in the left panel, and then, after selecting your preferred element in the right panel, you need to click on the “Add” button. As you might guess, the “Delete” button is responsible for deleting added commands.
Additional features of the application allow you to add separators before and after certain menu items. In addition, there are a couple of additional options.
Another interesting feature of the app is its ability to add custom commands for specific file types. Once you open the “Select File Type” window, which you can access by clicking on the “Add -> Add to Specified File Type” button in the main application window, you will see an impressive number of supported file extensions. The list is very long, so to quickly find a specific file type, use the search bar.
The screenshot below shows my context menu, which I modified using Context Menu Tuner:
That's all. Now you know what the Windows context menu is and a simple solution to edit it.
Have a great day!
As you use your computer, your context menu becomes clogged with various items added by your installed programs. To make matters worse, there are time delays in the appearance of the context menu, slowing you down and making you wait every time you right-click on a file or folder.
What happens when you right-click a file? Are there significant delays in the appearance of the context menu? Then I’ll tell you how to get rid of this, or at least reduce the delay. To do this, we will need to remove some context menu items to speed up the process. Even if it pops up quickly, you can remove some context elements just to tidy up the menu. Let's look at how you can customize the context menu
Editing with CCleaner
One of the fastest, easiest ways to customize the context menu is the popular app CCleaner. The context menu editing feature was added to CCleaner relatively recently, so you must have the latest version of the application installed to use this feature.
In the running program, click on the icon Service in the sidebar, select , and go to the tab Context menu at the top of the list. You will see a list of context menu items; you can easily disable and customize the context menu to your liking
To disable an entry in the context menu, select it and click the button Switch off. The change takes effect immediately; no restart is required. The button should not be used Delete- If you disable an entry in the context menu, you can easily re-enable it later. But if you have already uninstalled it but want to see it in the context menu again you will have to reinstall the associated applications.
On the left picture below is my menu before settings, on the right after. The speed of appearance has increased significantly, which is an integral part of comfortable work.
Configuration using ShellExView
CCleaner is easy to use, but you may have noticed that it does not show all context menu options, and therefore not all of them can be disabled. But fortunately there is another tool, ShellExView. After downloading and launching ShellExView, it automatically scans the system.
To view only those entries that belong to the context menu, select the menu item Settings, select Filter by extension type, and select Context menu.
The list includes both third-party context menu items and built-in ones that come with Windows. Third-party context menu items are highlighted in pink. You can also disable some of the built-in context menu items if you wish.
To disable an entry, select it in the context menu and click on the red button in the upper left corner. When you click the button, a dialog box will appear confirming how to disable the selected element; click OK. If you want to turn it on again later, as you may have guessed, press the green button (although in my opinion this is not a button, but a light bulb))))
You will have to restart your computer for the changes to take effect. It's not as convenient as CCleaner, but you can manage all the context menu items.
It is also possible to remove context menu entries by editing the registry directly, but I would not recommend this. Even for experienced users, this process is much more tedious and time-consuming (context menu items are stored in five different places in the registry). When editing the registry, there's no way to easily disable entries in the context menu, only deleting them - so you'll have to back up each key before deleting it if you want to restore it later. If there are programs, why complicate your life. But if, of course, you are not a young system administrator, or you want to prank a friend and are thirsty for knowledge, then read here to set up the context menu using the registry.
Right-click menus are called contextual menus because their contents depend on context—in other words, on what program you're in and what you clicked on. File utilities, many free programs and other applications, to make them more convenient to use, often add their own commands and entire sections to the context menus. This is done, in particular, by the archivers WinZip and WinRar, as well as the email clients Outlook Express and The Bat!, which add commands for packing and sending by email as attachments to the context menus of files.
Unfortunately, the more such programs are installed, the longer the context menus, the more cluttered they are, and the more difficult it is to find the right command. The situation is further aggravated by the fact that many programs, especially free ones, have the problem that the context menu commands they created remain even after the programs themselves are uninstalled.
However, some utilities provide convenient ways to configure and delete context menu commands. This is the best and most reliable way to restore order. But if there is no such function in the program (or if you managed to remove it), the composition of the menu can be changed using the Windows system registry.
However, before you go into the registry (which is not always safe), we will consider several of the most common programs that provide not only the creation of context menu commands, but also the ability to safely delete them.
WinZip Archives
The popular archiver utility WinZip adds several commands to file context menus (such as Add to Zip) or highlights them in the WinZip submenu. To configure these commands, start WinZip in "classic" mode (not Wizard mode) and select Options > Configuration. In version 8.1 and later, go to the System tab under Explorer Enhancements. In order not to rummage around too long to find the right command, in these versions you can disable the Display context menu items in a submenu mode - and then the archiving commands will be placed in the main menu, as in previous versions of WinZip.
To change individual commands, select or disable the appropriate items in the Context menu commands section. By disabling the Display icons on context menus mode, you can leave the commands in the menu, but remove the icons.
Finally, to completely eliminate WinZip commands from the context menu, disable Use shell extension (in versions 7 and 8) or Enable Explorer enhancements. However, keep in mind that you will lose the ability to extract content from the archive by right-clicking it, and you will not be able to expand the archive by dragging files onto its icon.
Configuring context menu commands created by the popular WinZip archiver
Music Winamp
The free Winamp media player adds three commands to the folder menu: Play in Winamp, Enqueue in Winamp, and Add to Winamp's Bookmark list. To remove them, Open Winamp and select Options > Preferences (Tools > Preferences) or right-click in the program window or on its panel and select the same command from its own context menu. An image of the hierarchical menu structure will appear on the left side of the window. Under General Preferences ( General settings) select the File types branch - in earlier versions it is called Setup - and disable the Show Winamp in folder context menus in Windows Explorer mode (Show Winamp in folder context menus in Windows Explorer) or, in earlier versions versions, Directory context menus and click the Close button.
Explorer context menus
In Windows 2000 and XP Pro, you can use the Group Policy tool to remove specific commands from the My Computer context menu and folders. Let's say we want to remove the Manage command from the My Computer context menu, which launches the Computer Management administration tool. To do this, select Start > Run, enter gpedit.msc and press Enter. A window will open, the left panel of which will display a hierarchical tree of commands. Go to Local Computer Policy\User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Explorer, double-click Hides the Manage item on the Windows Explorer context menu, select Enable mode (Enabled) and click OK.
This utility can also be launched by clicking Start > Programs > Administrative Tools > Computer Management (Start > Programs > Administrative Tools > Computer Management) and selecting Start > Run, entering compmgmt.msc and clicking OK.
To remove the entire folder context menu in Windows 2000, go to the Windows Explorer icon in the left pane and double-click Remove Windows Explorer's default context menu. In Windows XP you need to select the element of the same name, activate the Enable mode and click on the OK button.The next time you right-click on a folder located on the desktop or on an icon in Explorer, nothing will happen - however, the context menus of other objects such as toolbars will still work.To undo these changes, simply return to the described dialog box, select Not configured, and click OK.
In Windows 9x, to edit the context menu for a specific file type, open the My Computer window and select View > Folder Options. The Folder Options dialog box opens. If you go to the File Types tab, select the file of the desired type and click on the Edit button, another window will open - Edit File Type. This window has several useful functions, in particular you can change its icon or description. But the main thing is that at the bottom of the window are those of the context menu commands that can be changed, and a number of buttons for this: Remove, Set Default, as well as Edit and New.
Configuring Windows 9x Explorer context menus
As you can see, context menu commands can not only be deleted, but also created. True, for this it is necessary to be aware of certain agreements adopted when drawing up such teams. You can, of course, read smart books on this topic. However, for educational purposes, you can use a free program with a set of ready-made contextual commands. It's called Send To Toys and is located at http://www.gabrieleponti.com/software. Many of them, such as passing the file name and path to the clipboard, are useful in their own right - but even more so as a visual aid for composing your own context menu commands.
Very often, after installing various programs, unnecessary items are added to the context menu. For example, after installing any player, a new item for the right mouse button will definitely appear. That is, when we right-click on any file to open it in the specified program, an option to run using this program will be displayed.
Here, for example, is my context menu:
It's not quite small anymore.
With time items in the context menu It becomes a lot, in short it becomes clogged with unnecessary rubbish. In this lesson we will look at how they can be removed using standard system tools. Although many programs have already been created for these purposes.
The system registry stores all data about the operation of Windows programs and components. In this regard, careless handling of the registry and the slightest change can greatly affect the operation of the system, so be careful when making changes to it.
How to remove unnecessary items from the context menu?
Go to Start and click the Run button.
In the window that opens, enter the command Regedit and click OK.
Open the following folders:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT * shellexe ContextMenuHandlers
Having reached this path, we need to do the following. Right-click on the folder menu item that we want to delete. Let's say I want to remove shortcuts from the context menu - Notepad notepad, 7-Zip archiver. In the list that opens, select Delete.
Then we confirm the deletion.
We restart the computer and look at the result - these items are no longer there. This is how to remove unnecessary items from the context menu.
Useful video:
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Comments:
How to remove "CUT"?
That's it, thanks)) I found a solution in CCleaner (my version is 5.06). If anyone needs it: in the program, open Tools/Startup/top "context menu" tab. You can remove unnecessary items from the list or temporarily disable them. It couldn't be simpler!)))
In particular, Tru Image (from acronis) and Ultra ISO are in the menu, but they are not in this section of the registry. For example, like you have with Unlocker.
What if more programs are displayed in the menu, but there are none in ContextMenuHandlers? Where then to look for them?
Finally, thanks to your article, I saw where the items in the context menu are stored. Many thanks to the author for the training.
Thank you
Thank you! It worked for Win 8.1 too.
Huge gratitude! I have no words. Everything is clear and in accessible language.
Cleaning the context menu can be done manually through the registry, but this task is not trivial, since the entries are scattered in different places. In addition, it is not always easy to identify the appropriate registry key. For example, drivers are registered using the abbreviation “igfx”. The registry entries are scattered along the “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT” branch in the “shell” or “shellex” folders, which contains a folder called “ContextMenuHandlers”, which also includes individual parameters.
Shortening the context menu through the registry utility
Manual processing of context menu lines will take a lot of time. It is much easier to use the ShellExView program. Using regedit, you should only change system options.
To detect items from third-party programs in ShellExView, sort the results by the “Company” parameter and find “Context Menu” in the “Type” column.
The free ShellExView utility will create a single list of all these registry lines. Even on a relatively new system, their number can exceed 250. To avoid getting lost in them, after starting the program, the entries should first be sorted. Things will go smoothly if you click on the “type” line at the top of the window. This way you will immediately see all possible registry entries related, for example, to the “Context Menu”. But be careful: along with them, the utility will display lines from Shell, which it is better not to touch.
You can also sort by the “Company” parameter. In this case, the results will be arranged in alphabetical order - records created by the system and designated as “Microsoft” can be easily distinguished from the rest. Here, for example, you can select the corresponding “igfxDTCM Module” and disable it by clicking on the red dot at the top of the menu bar. After this, the entry for the (virtually useless) Intel driver graphics options will disappear from the context menu. However, for the system to apply these settings, you must first log out and then log in again. Alternatively, you can use the Task Manager to disable “explorer.exe” and then call this service again.
Changing system context menu items
Most of the lines in the context menu are created by the system itself. Among them there are also options that are not used by anyone, which, however, you would not want to accidentally activate by mistakenly pressing them. You can't simply get rid of them using the ShellExView program - you will have to manually modify the registry.
A good example is the Send to option that Windows shows every time the user clicks on a file or folder. Don't forget that some sending options do not meet today's needs: the default is generally set to "Fax Recipient".
To remove this item from the menu, in Regedit, navigate to “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT | AllFilesystemObjects | shellex | ContextMenuHandlers | SendTo". In the right window, double-click the “Default” option and before the long sequence of characters in curly braces, put a modest minus sign “–” to disable it. As always, you need to log out of Windows and log in again.