Manage the context-menu entries for files, folders, drives and Namespace objects

Context Menu entries

When you right-click a folder, you'll see some context-menu entries out of which some may be invalid or unwanted. For instance, when you uninstall a software, the corresponding entries may not be removed sometimes.

Read below to learn how to remove them manually.

* HKCR refers to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

• Directories

• FolderType

• Drives

• Namespace objects

• Files

Backup the Registry first

This entire article discusses about editing the registry to modify the context menu entries for an object. Before modifying the registry, it's advisable to create appropriate backups. Start Regedit.exe and navigate to the key which you want to modify. Look under each of the sub-keys for the context-menu entry name which you want to  remove. Before deleting the key, backup the corresponding branch if you want to undo the changes later. As you're not modifying various parts of the registry, exporting the related subkey should be enough. Once done, delete the sub key and the context menu is gone.

To know how to backup the registry completely, see the following pages:

• Complete registry backup using ERUNT
• How do I create a System Restore point?

Directory

The context-menu entries for Directories is built from these locations in the registry. The same applies for the Start button in the Taskbar

• [HKCR\Folder\Shell\]

• [HKCR\Folder\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\]

• [HKCR\Directory\Shell\]

• [HKCR\Directory\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\]

• [HKCR\AllFilesystemObjects\shell\]

• [HKCR \ AllFilesystemObjects \ shellex \ ContextMenuHandlers\]

Additional Context Menu locations based on the FolderType template

Some more obscure locations - Based on the FolderType Template

For Music folders, the context menu loads from this additional location:

• [HKCR\SystemFileAssociations\Directory.Audio\shell\]

• [HKCR\SystemFileAssociations\Directory.Audio\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\]

For Video folders

• [HKCR\SystemFileAssociations\Directory.Video\shell\]

• [HKCR\SystemFileAssociations\Directory.Video\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\]

For Picture folders

• [HKCR\SystemFileAssociations\Directory.Image\shell\]

• [HKCR\SystemFileAssociations\Directory.Image\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\]

Drives

To remove the context-menu entries for Drives, the following are the paths:

• [HKCR\Drive\Shell\]
• [HKCR\Folder\Shell\]
• [HKCR\Drive\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\]
• [HKCR\Folder\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\]

Namespace objects

To remove the context-menu entries for Namespace icons (My Computer, Recycle Bin etc), check here:

• [HKCR\Folder\Shell\]
• [HKCR\Folder\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\]
• [HKCR\CLSID\{Namespace-CLSID}\shell\]
• [HKCR\CLSID\{Namespace-CLSID}\ shellex \ ContextMenuHandlers\]

Example - For My Computer the key would be:

• [HKCR\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\]

Files

The context-menu entries for Files are built from the following registry locations:

• [HKCR\<ProgID>\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\]
• [HKCR \*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\]
• [HKCR\*\shell\]
• [HKCR\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\]

Example: For Shortcuts (.lnk files), the context-menu is built from:

• [HKCR\lnkfile\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\]
• [HKCR\exefile\shell\]
• [HKCR\exefile\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\]
• [HKCR\AllFilesystemObjects\shell\]
• [HKCR\*\shell\]
• [HKCR\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\]
• [HKCR\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\]

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