Add any program to Right Click Menu

When you right click on folder, What you see ?  A list of menu options called as “Context Menu”.  It has lot of options like Open, explore,Copy,cut Etc. Ever wondered how can you add your own customized option in this menu?  See an example below .

 

 

Isn’t  that cool ?

[stextbox id="info"] Well, Why you are showing me this ? Why would I ever need it ?[/stextbox]

There can be couple of reasons why you might do this :-

• If you love to customize your OS ,
• If you enjoy playing with your computer configuration,
• You frequently open a site while browsing in any folders,
• You frequently open notepad to edit things, Why to go to start menu to open notepad when you can simply open it from anywhere just by right click

There are many many possibility depends on how creatively you think . If you have questions or get an idea but could not figure out how to do, ask me from comment box and I would be happy to guide you.

 

[stextbox id="info"]Alright, I get it. Show me how can I add program to right click menu[/stextbox]

We are going to accomplish this by modifying the registry. If you are not so sure what registry is, you should read Introduction to Windows Registry  and then Launching the registry Editor Tool .

Let’s go .

[stextbox id="grey"]Step 1.  Open registry editor by typing regedit in run dialog box or from a command prompt.[/stextbox]

 

[stextbox id="grey"]Step 2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Shell[/stextbox]

 

 

[stextbox id="grey"]Step 3. Right click on Shell  and select create a new key. Name it anything you like. Does not matter.[/stextbox]

 

 

For instance I have given the key name “WinTechGeek”.

 

[stextbox id="grey"] Step 4 . In the right side, you will see a value name “Default”. Double click on it and put a name.[/stextbox]

Whatever You put in this Default Value,will appear in the right click Menu.Again I will use WinTechGeek.

 

[stextbox id="grey"]Step 5 : Right Click on the newly Created Key again and then select new=>Key.[/stextbox]

This time, Name it “Command” as exactly. If you put anything other than Command, It will not work.

 

 

 

[stextbox id="alert"]In the right side of command, you will see a value “Default”. [/stextbox]

This is the Key which will execute what ever you want to do from that right click menu. For example,If you want to open a website , put “iexplore http://www.google.com” (replace google with the name of your fav site).

I will put down few commands which you can use,you can think many more

 

1. iexplore http://www.websitename.com     -  Open a website of your choice.
2. notepad.exe                                                              -  Start notepad
3. Path of any software                                              -  Start that application.
4. Anything else which you can think of            -  It will do what you thinked

 

 

[stextbox id="info"]Sounds Ineteresting, I will use it for sure. Would You mind explaing how it works ?[/stextbox]

Sure, I am glad you are still interested.

If you read the article on Windows registry intro, It’s clear that registry is heart of windows operating system, No matter what we do on the computer it has to consult the registry to either get or put info. And of-course when we right click on folder/files/ to populate the context menu it has to consult the registry.The trick we used was to modify the registry to make windows work the way we wanted.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is the root key which holds all the information about file associations and stuffs. When we right click on a file/folder windows looks for that file type from this root key and then executes the command defined there. There is a lot of things about this key, lets not go deep and come to our point right click on folder. Well, when we right click on any folder windows quickly reads HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\directory\shell and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\folder\shell keys. Under these keys there are some sub keys which we see like Find, Open, Explore.

Each subkey under Shell has a name, a default value for that keyname, a subkey  Command and a default value for Command. The default value of Command key is the one which will get executed when you select your menu option from Right click menu.

 

That’s was it for now, Do let me know how you are gonna use it.

[stextbox id="alert"]Wait wait, there is a lot to come on registry tips and tricks, Don’t forget to “Put your Email Address here” .[/stextbox]

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