Good day... In today's article we will talk about how to clear the context menu of the Explorer program in Windows 7.In general, the context menu Windows Explorer– the tool is convenient. But it quickly becomes overgrown with unnecessary points.
Almost every second program considers it its duty to cram its own commands or sub-items into them. Of course, for some types of software this is relevant and in demand by users.As an example, an item added by the majority antivirus programs– “Check for viruses” (the exact name varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, of course).
Why is a “clogged” context menu bad?
Usability difficulties arise. Simply put, it is more difficult to find the desired item or command in the menu with your eyes if there are several dozen sub-items there than when there are half a dozen of them. In addition, pop-up submenu blocks confuse even experienced users, even if only for seconds. And there’s nothing to say about newcomers.
Due to clogged unnecessary rubbish The system itself, or rather the explorer (Explorer.exe), begins to slow down the menu. Such “brakes” can be noticeable even on the newest and most powerful configurations, not to mention the “budget” and “office” options.
It would seem - uninstall unnecessary program and the commands associated with it will also be deleted. But what if the program is needed, but its items in the context menu are not? In addition, not all programs “clean up after themselves” when uninstalled, i.e. Menu items may remain when the program associated with them is no longer in the system.
There are two ways to solve
- Using system tools (registry editor)
- Using third party utilities
Note
- You can simply press the Win + R combination and type “regedit” (without quotes)
- On Win 7 and 8, it is better to run Regedit.exe immediately as an administrator
Important! Before further steps, you need to export the edited subsection !
It's easy to do. Right click on the subsection title – “Export”...
In the window that opens, the system will “ask” what to export (a separate branch or the entire registry), in which folder to save the copy and under what name. In the future, if necessary, you can return everything “to the way it was” by simply double-clicking on this copy file (import back) and reboot the computer to be sure.
So. You need to find and open the thread:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlersand delete unnecessary context menu items (the same as in screenshot 1, just select the “Delete” command).In addition, you should immediately look intoHKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\OpenWithList
Here are the program entries from the “Open with” context menu sub-item. Cleaning it, as a rule, gives a very noticeable increase in the speed of the conductor. In the same way, you can clear the unnecessary context menu for folders in branches:
- HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell
- HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenu Handlers
- HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shellHKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
And for certain file types in entries like “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.<расширение файла>" For example – “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.avi”.
The advantages of this method
- Does not require installation of unnecessary programs
- All changes are reversible
Disadvantages of this method
- Quite a labor-intensive process (manually edit many parameters).
- Difficult for novice users.
- Some programs are recorded in the above sections not by their name, but by a “human-incomprehensible” identifier (this can be seen in screenshot 3). As a result, they must first be “identified.”
- There is a risk of “hooking” commands and points of the system itself (once again, emphasis on the importance of preliminary export of backup copies!).
Installing a specialized utility
There are quite a lot of programs of this type. Good feedback there is about the ContextEdit program. But it's paid. There are also free CCleaner (read how to use the program). And the Context Menu Tuner program.But they do not “see” all the items in the context menu. And they have problems with “rolling back” actions in case of errors. Autoruns from Win Sysinternals requires professional knowledge. This is clearly not a level for beginners.
Against their background, the fairly reliable and simple program ShellExView by Nirsoft. You can download it from this link. Install the program, copy the crack ShExView_lng.ini to the root folder of the program and run it.The program is easy to bring to a form that is understandable even for beginners.
“Settings” “Filtering by extension type” “Explorer menu”.
And it’s easy to edit - there is a “Deactivate” command, i.e., an unnecessary item can simply be disabled without deleting it. In case of an error, you can turn it back on with two mouse clicks (the “Activate” command).
pros
- There is a zipped version (does not require installation)
- Doesn’t install its own toolbars in browsers, doesn’t go into startup and the Internet on its own, doesn’t offer any advertising nonsense in its interface
Minuses
- ShExView_lng.ini crack needs to be copied separately to the program folder
- You need to check for new versions yourself. official website
Conclusion
However, these two aspects can be classified as disadvantages very conditionally. That's basically all I wanted to say about this. I think this article will be useful...
You probably had to notice that in every Windows build the context menu is different. In addition, 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 click on any file right click mouse to open it in specified program, the option to run using this program will be displayed.
Here, for example, is my context menu:
It's not quite small anymore.
Over time, there are a lot of items in the context menu; in short, it becomes clogged with unnecessary rubbish. And the question arises: how to get rid of “unnecessary” items? Although many programs have already been created for these purposes, let’s consider how this can be solved using standard system tools.
The system registry stores all data about the operation of programs and Windows 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?
Let's go to Start press the button Execute.
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, AIMP player. In the list that opens, select Delete.
As you know, you can create some types of objects in Windows directly from the Explorer context menu; just right-click in the selected location and select the “Create” menu. By default, in Windows 10, the following sub-items are available for this menu item: folder, shortcut, bitmap, contact, RTF document, simple Text Document and a compressed folder.
If you have a number of programs on your computer, for example, WinRAR or Microsoft Office, there will be other items in the submenu.The contents of the submenu will also depend on the selected location. So, in system disk You will only have access to the “Folder” item, and in the “Libraries” catalog - only the “Library” item. It may well happen that you will never find a use for all or only some of the sub-items of the “Create” menu, and therefore you want to hide them so that they do not interfere and do not take up space in the menu.
If the unnecessary option belongs to a third-party program, you should look for a setting that disables it in the parameters of that program, but you can also use a more universal method.
A subsection with the corresponding name or extension in the system registry section HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is responsible for displaying a particular element in the context menu, in this case for the “Create” submenu. Each such subsection has a ShellNew directory; if you delete it, the item in the Explorer context menu will also disappear.
Let's demonstrate this with an example. Let's say you want to delete the “Document in RTF format” item.
Open the registry editor with the regedit command, expand the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT section, find the .rtf element, go into it and delete the ShellNew folder from there, having first created a backup copy of the key in order to be able to restore the menu item if necessary.
All other elements are deleted in the same way.
The “Contact” sub-item in the registry will correspond to the .contact element,
text file - .tхt,
RAR archive - .rar,
compressed ZIP folder - .zip,
bitmap - .bmp,
library - .library-ms,
shortcut - .lnk, folder - Folder.
This is how easy it is to get rid of all unnecessary elements in the “Create” submenu.
At the end of the article, I will show beginners how to create a backup copy of any registry branch on the desktop.
Friends, if on the contrary you want to add additional elements to the context menu of the desktop, folder, file, local disk, That .
Over time, the context menu that appears when you click the right mouse button becomes clogged with various unnecessary points. Due to the presence of these items, the context menu begins to appear with some time delays, which can quite interfere with normal operation. Remove them without using any third party programs almost impossible.
Let's look at how the program works ShellExView and let's try using it to remove an item from the Windows 7 context menu.
ShellExView is a small utility with which you can individually disable each item just by highlighting it and clicking on the red ball. The program is Russified and has a clear and very simple interface. Below you can see what the program window looks like.
Removing an item from the context menu
So, before proceeding with the instructions, I want to warn you, if you doubt something or do not understand how to work with this software at all, then it is better not to take risks, otherwise you will have to reinstall the operating system later.
1. Download the ShellExView program and run it.
2. In order for the elements that belong to the context menu to be located at the beginning of the list, at the top find the tab with the text “Type” and click on it once.
3. Find the items you want to delete. To remove it, select the extension that is associated with our item and click on the red ball at the top left edge of the program window.
To those who use operating system Windows is not so long ago, the idea of removing items from the Explorer context menu is unlikely to be particularly interesting. But if you have been working with Windows for quite a long time without reinstalling and install it on your computer from time to time various programs, then it is likely that your context menu has grown to serious proportions and looks something like this:
To make the context menu more convenient, you can clear it of unnecessary and unused items. Eat special programs for editing the context menu, such as FileMenu Tools or ShellExView. However, in this article we will learn how to remove items from the context menu using standard means Windows OS.
Removing items from the context menu
The easiest way to remove items from the context menu is to look in the program settings and uncheck the corresponding items.
However, this is not always possible, since some programs do not provide a function for disabling items in the Explorer context menu. In this case, you can use the registry editor and remove items from the context menu, so to speak, manually.
I would like to warn you that before carrying out any manipulations with the system Windows registry, it is highly advisable to first save a backup copy of the registry in a safe place. This is quite easy to do. In the registry window you need to open the menu File and select item Export.
To restore the registry using backup copy you will only need to double-click on the previously saved file and agree to add information to the registry.
So, we launch the System Registry Editor using the command regedit in the window Execute(Win+R). Then you need to go to the registry branch: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers. Here you will see most of the context menu items.
To remove an unnecessary element from the context menu, right-click on it and select Delete.
If some context menu element could not be found in the above registry section, then it is located here - HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\Shellex\ContextMenuHandlers.
In order to remove items from the context menu that appear when you right-click on a folder, go to the section HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shellex\ContextMenuHandlers, as well as in the section HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers.
If you need to remove any item from the context menu To open with, then you need to look here: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\OoenWithList.
By the way, if when you try to make changes to system registry the message “Editing the registry is prohibited by the system administrator” appears, advice from . It describes in detail how to remove the ban on access to registry editing tools.
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