How to Clean Up Your Messy Windows Context Menu?

Description

After installing bunch of applications, the context menu gets cluttered. Thus, it is important to clean those applications. 

Solution:

Clean up the context menu by hacking the Registry

It is recommended to clean up the context menu by hacking the Registry. For this, you can open up the regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box. 

You can find most of the menu items that are used for all files and folders can be found by looking at one of these keys:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFileSystemObjects\ShellEx

Items which are specific to folders can usually be found in one of these keys instead:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

Now, we tell you how these items located in different locations can be handled.

Dealing with “shell” Items

For example, on browsing directory in the shell key you will find items for Add to VLC media player and Play with VLC. If you want to hide one of these items then click Shift+Right click and add a new string value on the right-hand side and name it “Extended” like you can see below:

For disabling it instead of deleting, you can add a new string value and call it “LegacyDisable”.

Dealing with “shellex” Items

Also, you have noticed the registry keys with the name “shellex.” These keys are needed to be handled differently.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

These items are little bit difficult to decode but you can usually figure out an item by the key name on the left, and then just change the (Default) value by putting a few dashes in front of it. It will disable the item without actually deleting anything. In this example, clicking on 7-ZIP on the left, and by putting dashes in front of the value data you can disable that menu item.

Dealing With Specific File Type Items

Sometimes the menu items get located on the registry for a specific file type. In this case, you need to locate the file extension key for that extension. For example, if you want to remove a menu item for Excel documents then you need to look under:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xls

The actual type of file is “Excel.Sheet.8″ and thus, you should browse down to this registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell

After this, you can disable it in a same way as you did for “shell” items.

Cleaning Up the Context Menu the Easy Way

Furthermore, you can use another way also to clean the context menu. For this, you can use two different NirSoft utilities to clean up the context menu. Firstly, the tool can be used is ShellMenuView through which you can manage all of those “shell” key items with an easy to use interface. Click the “Disable” button when you will find the offending item that creates a LegacyDisable key. 

You will find those items disabled.

After that, disabling shell or shellex extensions using another Nirsoft utility known as ShellExView is also very simple. You just need to click “Disable” button to remove the items.

Thus, after using these utilities you can find your context menu back to the original “new install” state.

Moreover, this works with all the versions of Windows. Therefore, clean your context menu clutter now. For more from the XpertCrew^TM team, please follow us on Twitter @Techvedic or contact Techvedic’s computer support helpdesk, as per below contact-details:

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