How do I clean up the right-click context menu in Windows explorer?

Question

Sometimes applications plug into the context menu that I get on right-click on files and folders in Windows Explorer. After some time this menu gets really messy and I just want to clean it up.

Can you tell me how I can do this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You have to edit your registry, it's easiest do do this for the context menu of directories:

• Run regedit
• Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell
• Remove the keys that correspond to the unwanted commands

Each filetype (file extension) has its own additional commands which you can find under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\.EXT

If you want to remove a specific menu entry, it might be easier to just search for the context menu string in the registry.

Answer 2

You can use ShellExView to disable context menu addons.