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Hack 29 A Power User's Hidden Weapon: Improve the Context Menu
The context menu is an often underused tool.
But with these four additions and edits to the menu,
it'll turn into a powerhouse that
you'll use every day.
Windows
Explorer's
right-click
context menu is one of the most basic of all XP tools; it provides
many shortcuts for whenever you want to take action on a file or a
folder. But the right-click menu is missing several basic options,
such as choosing a specific folder to which you want to move or copy
the file you've highlighted, rather than just
cutting or copying the file. And when you install new applications,
they have a nasty habit of adding their own options that
you'll rarely use in the right-click menu.
The end result: a right-click context menu cluttered with options and
lacking several basic useful ones. But you can extend the power of
the menu with these four hacks.
3.10.1 Add "Copy To Folder" and "Move To Folder" Context Menu Options
I spend a lot of time copying and
moving files between folders. More often than not, when I click on a
file in Explorer, I want to copy or move it to another folder. That
means I spend a good deal of time dragging files around or copying
and pasting them.
But with a Registry hack, you can save yourself
time: you can add
Copy To
Folder and Move To Folder options to the right-click context menu.
When you choose one of the options from the menu, you browse to any
place on your hard disk to copy or move the file to, and then send
the file there. To add the option, run the Registry Editor [Hack #68] and
go to
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers.
shellex tells you it's a shell
extension key that lets you customize the user shell or the
interface. Create a new key called Copy
To. Set the value to
{C2FBB630-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}. Create
another new key called Move To. Set the value to
{C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}. Exit the
Registry. The changes should take effect immediately. The Copy To
Folder and Move To Folder options will appear. When you right-click
on a file and choose one of the options, you'll be
able to move or copy the file using a dialog box like the one shown
in Figure 3-20.
Figure 3-20. Specifying a destination using the Copy To Folder option
3.10.2 Add and Remove Destinations for the "Send To" Option
The right-click context menu does have
one useful option, Send To, which allows
you to send the file to any one of a list of programs or
locationsfor example, to a drive, program, or folder.
It would be nice to edit that list, adding new locations and programs
and taking away existing ones that you never use. How locations and
programs show up on the menu appears to be somewhat of a mystery,
but, in fact, it's easy to hack. Go to
C:\Documents and Settings\<User
Name>\SendTo, where <User
Name> is your user name. The folder will be filled with
shortcuts to all the locations you find on your Send To context menu.
To remove an item from the Send To menu, delete the shortcut from the
folder. To add an item to the menu, add a shortcut to the folder by
highlighting the folder, choosing File
New Shortcut, and following the instructions for creating a shortcut. The
new setting will take effect immediately; you don't
have to exit Windows Explorer for it to go into effect.
3.10.3 Open the Command Prompt from the Right-Click Menu
I began computing in the days of DOS,
and I still can't give up the
command prompt. When it comes to doing
down-and-dirty tasks like mass deleting or renaming of files, nothing
beats it. I find myself frequently switching back and forth between
Windows Explorer and the command prompt.
Often, when using Windows Explorer, I want to open the command prompt
at the folder that's my current location. That takes
too many steps: opening a command prompt and then navigating to my
current folder. However, there's a quicker way: add
an option to the right-click context menu that will open a command
prompt at your current folder. For example, if you were to
right-click on the C:\My Stuff folder, you could
then choose to open a command prompt at C:\My
Stuff.
To add the option, run the Registry
Editor[Hack #68], then go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Classes/Folder/Shell.
Create a new key called Command Prompt. For the
default value, enter whatever text you want to appear when you
right-click on a folderfor example, Open Command
Prompt. Create a new key beneath the Command
Prompt key called Command. Set the
default value to Cmd.exe /k pushd %L. That value
will launch Cmd.exe, which is the XP command
prompt. The /k switch puts the prompt into
interactive mode. That is, it lets you issue commands from the
command prompt; the command prompt isn't being used
to issue only a single command and then exit. The
pushd command stores the name of the current
directory, and %L uses that name to start the
command prompt at it. Exit the Registry. The new menu option will
show up immediately. Note that it won't appear when
you right-click on a file; it shows up only when you right-click on a
folder.
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3.10.4 Clean Up the "Open With" Option
When you right-click on a file, one of
the menu options is
Open With, which provides a
list of programs for you to open the file with. This list changes
according to the type of file you're clicking.
Depending on the file type, the lists can get long, because programs
frequently add themselves to this list when you install them. Making
things worse, there are times when the listed programs
aren't applicable. For example, do you really want
to open a .bmp bitmap graphics file with
Microsoft Word? I think not.
You can clean up the Open With list by using a Registry hack. Run the
Registry Editor and go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts.
Look for the file extension whose Open With list you want to edit and
find its OpenWithList
subkeyHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.bmp\OpenWithList,
for example. The subkey will have an alphabetical list of
String values. Open each value and examine the
value data. It will be the name of one of the programs on the Open
With list (Winword.exe, for example). Delete any
entry you don't want to appear.
Don't delete the value data; delete the
String value listing. In other words, if the value
data for the a String value is
Winword.exe, delete the entire string rather than
just the value data. Exit the Registry.
