Have you ever noticed that when you install a new piece of software, it sometimes creates a menu relating to that program when you right-click a file or folder? You may not ever use this menu, and many people find this annoying.
Fortunately you can get rid of these and it only takes 5-10 minutes. Just follow the steps in this guide.
Disclaimer: Modifications to the registry are performed at your own risk. A registry backup and recovery guide is included in this how-to.
For Windows XP users: Go to the Start menu, open Run, type regedit and hit Enter.
Windows Vista and Windows 7 users: Go to Start menu, type regedit in the Search box and hit Enter.
This will open the registry editor. You will have a window that looks like this:
Before starting we’ll make sure the registry is backed up so that if anything goes wrong, or you are not happy with the changes, you can easily recover your previous settings.
To do this, click the Computer tab on the left of the regedit window, then select File and Export…
Now create a name for the file such as Backup of Registry like the one illustrated, and save it in a safe place such as your My Documents folder. This may take a few moments, so be patient.
Now you are backed up, you are ready to get rid of those annoying menus!
In the left-hand tab, you will see a list containing the following:
If you click the arrows on the left of these directories, it will expand the menu and provide further menus for you to navigate to.
There are 2 places you need to navigate to in the registry. Firstly to remove right-click menus from individual files, and secondly for removing them from when you right-click folders.
For removing them from files you need to click to the following
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Expand the list by clicking the arrow to the left of the menu
Now select the * menu expand it
Then expand shellex
And finally ContextMenuHandlers
Under the ContextMenuHandlers menu, you will see a list of folders for all of the right-click options. What you need to do is delete the folder corresponding to the menu you wish to remove. So, for example you wish to remove the right-click menu for 7-Zip, you would delete the 7-Zip folder.
Note: only delete those menus that you are sure you know what they are.
To remove right-click menus from folders, it is the exact same concept, you are just navigating to a different location in the registry.
Firstly go to:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Then scroll down the list until you find a menu called Directory (instead of *).
Then navigate to shellex, and then ContextMenuHandlers
Once you have finished close the registry editor and restart your computer.
Registry Recovery
If you are not happy with the changes you have made, or the changes have caused any issues, you can easily restore the registry from the backup you created earlier. Navigate to the backup and double-click it. You will receive this warning message:
Click Yes to recover your registry. Finally, restart your computer to complete the recovery process.