AddictiveTips

Have you ever noticed that some applications like Antivirus software, WinZip, SmartFTP, and others, add some items to the context menu when you right-click on a file or folder? Apart from Windows Vista, these software install shell extensions to add applications in the right-click context menu. If you delete the appropriate shell extension in the registry, you won’t get these additional menu items.

A messed up right-click context menu is shown in the screenshot below. I am going to remove SmartFTP from the right-click context menu because I never use it. Read on to find out how to do it.

Note: Make sure you have made a proper backup of your Registry. In case you have mistakenly removed the wrong folder, the backup will come handy in restoring the lost folder.

Remove Item From Right-Click Context Menu Of Files

Note: This method will remove the program from the context menu list when you right-click on some file.

Open Registry Editor to start hacking it.

Windows XP: Go to Start menu, open Run, and type regedit and hit Enter.

Windows Vista: Go to Start menu, type regedit in the Search box and hit Enter.

Once your Registry Editor is open, navigate to,

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ ContextMenuHandlers

To remove SmartFTP, first make a backup by right-clicking on the SmartFTP folder and selecting Export. Then save the registry at some safe place. Once backup is done, simple delete the folder.

You will see that SmartFTP has vanished from the right-click context menu of every file in your computer.

Remove Item From Right-Click Context Menu Of Folders

Note: This method will remove the program from the context menu list when you right-click on some folder.

Use the same method as above to open Registry Editor.

Once your Registry Editor is open, navigate to,

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\contextmenuhandlers

Delete SmartFTP folder, just like you did in first method.

You will now see that SmartFTP has vanished from the right-click context menu of both files and folders in your computer.  It’s that simple!

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