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PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
Can I edit my right-click menu?
Q When I open the right-click menu in Windows 11, the items I use most – Rename, Copy and Paste – are all hidden under ‘Show more options’. It’s frustrating that I have to click this before I can access those functions. I’d like to move some of the options I never use, such as ‘Copy as path’ or ‘Compress to zip file’, to the ‘Show more options’ entry instead. Is it possible to edit the right-click menu in Windows 10 or 11?
Eamonn Colley
A The right-click menu is key to using Windows efficiently, so it’s surprising how little control Microsoft has given users over it.
To be fair, this is due in part to the way it works. Microsoft calls it the context menu because different options appear in it depending on what you click, where and when. With so many variables, it’s hard to imagine a simple system that would let you edit the menu’s contents, although we think Microsoft should find a way to let users tweak the essentials.
Even so, Microsoft’s decision to relegate numerous important functions to the ‘Show more options’ sub-menu in Windows 11 was certainly misguided.
This particular move has attracted a lot of criticism, so we imagine Microsoft will eventually address it, but for now there are a couple of workarounds. The simplest is to hold down the Shift key while right-clicking – this forces the context menu to show every available option. That’s easy enough, but you have to remember to do it every time and – as with clicking ‘Show more options’ – it introduces an extra action that wasn’t necessary before.
The alternative is to apply a registry hack that returns Windows 11’s context menu to the way it was. We’ve published these instructions before, but we’re often asked this question, so it’s good to recap from time
