Modifying the Right-Click Menu

 Modifying the Right-Click Menu

Now on with the show...

First we need to find the location of the program we want to use (Note: You can also get this information from the "Properties" box if you have a shortcut to the program on your desktop. Otherwise...) Click on "Find Files or Folders" in the Start Menu

Search for the program you want to add to the right-click menu Make a note of the folder where the program is found Some common programs you might like to use are: Netscape.exe - Netscape Communicator IExplore.exe - Internet Explorer WordPad.exe - WordPad

From the Start Menu select "Run" Enter "regedit" This runs the Registry Editor

Open the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT "folder" This opens a long list of file extensions, (.exe, .html, .ini, etc) Following the extension list, extension groups are listed, ( for example "htmlfile" refers to all files with ".htm" and ".html" extensions, "jpegfile" refers to .jpg and .jpeg files, "giffile" refers to .png files) Note: To find the extension group associated with a particular extension, click on the extension and note the value in the "Data" field, (on the right side), for the value named "(Default)"

Select the extension, or extension group you wish to modify - typically, you will want to modify an extension group, rather than an individual extension In this example we want to add a "Netscape" option to all .html and .htm files, so we open the "htmlfile" extension group Note: we could modify each extension separately if we wished

Right click on the "shell" option Select "New" Select "Key"

This creates a new key with a default name

Change the key name to whatever you wish to appear on the right click menu

Now right click on the new key Select "New" Select "Key"

This creates a "subkey" of the key we just created Rename this subkey "command"

Note that in the right hand window the name "Default" and "value not set" appear Double click on the "Default", (or the small "ab" icon to the left) This brings up an Edit window which is used to set the default value

The "value" to enter is the name of the program to run The format of the value field is: FOLDERNAME\PROGRAMNAME "%1" In this example its: E:\Program Files\Netscape\Communicator\Program\Netscape.exe "%1" Note: When we use the new menu option, "%1" is replaced with the name of the file we clicked on. This tells Netscape which file to open

Click "OK" to set the default value This completes the process - Right clicking on any "htmlfile" will now have a "Netscape" option that opens the selected file in Netscape

You can add as many right click options as you wish In this example, an "Edit" command has also been added which will open the file using WordPad

Note that the menu options are listed in the order in which they were created The simplest way to reorder the options is to rename the option that you want to appear at the end of the list

To rename a menu option, right click on the key in the Registry Editor and select "Rename"

Rename the key to a temporary name, then rename it back to its original

In the above case, we renamed the "Netscape" option and it now appears below the "Edit" option Note that you can remove the menu item by deleting the key in the Registry Editor The "Delete" option is directly above the "Rename" option Note that to delete the "Netscape" key, you must first delete its "command" subkey