Discussion on:

Take control of your Windows 7 context menus

Do your Windows 7 context menus need some cleaning up? What application or methods do you use to tidy your context menus?

Not clear on whether we need both programs or just one of these.

While most items that appear on the context menu are configured in the registry as standard context menu items, others are implemented as Shell Extensions.

For those that are configured in the registry as standard context menu items, you will use ShellMenuView to remove them.

For those that are configured in the registry as Shell Extensions, you will use ShellExView to remove them.

Whether you will need to use both will depend on how the context menu items that appear on your system are configured in the registry.

Thanks, Greg, that is an excellent explanation. But you really need to paste it, word for word, into the main article. Otherwise the reader is left with the obvious question: "Why both?"

I like little programs that give you so much power within your own system.
I will definitely use them for sure

...what if a context menu item turns up in neither of these? I have for example two instances of "RealPlayer" under the "Open with" context menu item, as well as "Play in RealPlayer" as its own context menu item, and none of these appear as an option to be disabled in either ShellMenuView or ShellExView.

Try the freeware version of Glary Utilities. There is a context menu manager under "Optimize & Improve" that may pick up RealPlayer and allow you to remove it from the context menu.

You also get a bunch of other handy utilities to help clean up your system.

You say you "ran Disk Cleanup, emptied the Recycle Bin, defragged my hard disk, updated drivers"

Most of this is useless or redundant.

Disk CCleanup is slow and has, over the years, lured people into the horrid "compress drive" option - killing their performance. CCleaner is faster and better but why even bother.I have a 1TB drive and will probably never need to clean it.

Empty the Recycle bin is done by disk cleanup.

Windows 7 defrags automatically on a schedule.

I never update drivers unless something is broken or I need new features.

"why ... bother. I have a 1TB drive and will probably never need to clean it"

- (a). One of the industry's favourite (mis)quotes is Bill Gates' famous "no-one will ever need more than 640 KB of memory." Likewise there will come a time... (b) Anyway it's not likely to be the total volume of crud on your disk that causes problems, but the huge numbers of files that accumulate. More about that later...

"Empty the Recycle bin is done by disk cleanup."

- But you've just said Disk Cleanup isn't necessary! Make up your mind... Frankly I *was* a bit surprised that Greg found it worthwhile mentioning this, though - I never leave anything in my Bin for more than a few minutes. Maybe that's just my OCD. However it is a lot easier to empty the trash than to go into Disk Cleanup (and wait for it to analyse for ages and come back with such a small set of recommendations - 48 KB here, 120 KB there, pah)

"Windows 7 defrags automatically on a schedule"

- Oh yah? I have yet to see any evidence of this. I run Piriform's Defraggler on a daily schedule and it finds *plenty* to do virtually every time - I'm quite busy on my 'puter - but I would be very very surprised if the Windows scheduled defrag, if indeed it really does anything at all, was even marginally effective. I know the built-it defraggers in previous versions of Windows were sadly short of adequate.

"I never update drivers unless something is broken or I need new features"

- I come across this approach quite often and honestly don't understand it. There was a time when driver updates *could* break things but I haven't seen it (except when there was something else fundamentally wrong elsewhere - no fault of the drivers). On the other hand, driver updates are often issued becaue there is something wrong with the driver, like security flaws, or functionality bugs. You would do better to make it a rule to update rather than not.

Just my experience speaking. Your mileage may vary.

I have lost count of the number of Windows computers I have rescued from imminent disposal - their owners are frustrated, cussing, and ready to commit suicide (or murder) because of how slow the machine is and as a rule I can spend an hour deleting temporary files (user, Windows, and Internet Explorer's [I have more than once found this folder containing more than 16,000 files. NTFS and FAT file systems do not deal well with huge numbers of directory entries and this slows the computer down more than you would believe possible]), as well as Windows Update's downloaded software folder; and defragging the drive - and made a dramatic difference to the computer's performance.

I thought it was interesting that Greg actually needed to do all of those system cleanup tasks at the same time. I will occasionally leave one or two unattended for a very short time, but never all of them. If I have drivers that need updating, it gets done immediately. I never use Disk Cleanup because I handle all its tasks personally on a regular basis, including emptying the Recycle Bin. I empty temporary files as soon as I start to notice a drop in performance, which happens more or less often, depending on the number of programs I have installed recently, and how much internet travel I do. I'd like to think Greg listed all of those cleanup tasks for dramatic effect, rather than admitting to being negligent with his system.

Windows 7 DOES defrag regularly, but it's not "on a schedule" per se. As long as your computer is left running, Windows 7 (and I thought Vista did, too) runs Defrag while your computer is idle. I leave my computer on 24 hours a day, so I have almost no fragmentation. If you're one of those people who doesn't like that it does that behind your back, or if you prefer doing it yourself either with Windows Defrag or with a 3rd party program, you can go into the Management Console, and disable that scheduled task, but I have never felt the need. I kind of like that I don't have to do it manually. My brother just wasted (not really wasted, but it felt that way to him) several hours last night defragging his old XP dinosaur - that does NOT do it automatically. I suggested he add a scheduled task to do it, but he never leaves that machine running idle, so it wouldn't do any good. Of course, he doesn't always have that machine connected to the internet, either, so when he does connect, he usually spends a few hours waiting for Windows Update to finish. This was kind of a rough weekend for him

This tools are great!

I use ShellNewHandler tool to control the 'New' context menu. I never used the options New>Library Folder, New>WinRAR archive, New>Microsoft Word Document and others, only New>Folder and New>Text Document, so I find this tool and eliminate this not-used-by-me options.

And now I will begin to use these new tools right away! Thanks!

I use a 3 handy context menu apps:
SendTo toys
FileMenu Tools
XnView shell ex64 (win7)

do Google search to find downloads...all free

I have been using their software for years. I have found a lot of the programs on the site very useful. I think one of the best things about NirSoft is that most, if not all, of the software is standalone which makes it perfect for my USB toolbox.

Defiantly check out all the software they have on the site but watch out for AV. A lot of AV's don't like some of their programs and they will rip them out of your USB toolbox.

What I'd really like is a way to change the order of the items on the context menu to get the ones I use most at the top and to get "Rename" and "Delete" apart.

I use Windows 7 Home 64-bit and I've used ShellMenuView and ShellExView in the past to disable menu items. Your instructions are clear and simple on how to do this. I'm looking for a way to add menu items or to move them from sub-menus to the main menu. I would also like to include some but not all of the extended menu items on the basic menu, or have the extended menu open by default (then I could remove unwanted items using ShellMenuView). In earlier versions of Windows (XP perhaps, maybe earlier), menu apps published by PCMagazine allowed a lot of customizations. Thanks.

Hello. Nice review here. I prefer to use "Ultimate Windows Context Menu Customizer" - it has much more friendly GUI.