The right-click context menu is one of Windows’ best innovations (although Borland invented that feature years before Microsoft). But it can get out of hand. When I right-click a file, I get 25 options. Six of those are submenus filled with more options.
You can reduce that overhead by careful editing of the Registry, but there’s an easier way: Use CCleaner, a free utility that’s handy to keep around for a variety of reasons.
You can choose from two functionally identical versions of CCleaner: The regular version requires installation. CCleaner Portable–the version you put on a flash drive so you can help fix friends’ computers–does not.
The context-menu cleaning feature was added to CCleaner fairly recently, so if you already have the program, you may need to update it before doing the following:
- Click Tools on CCleaner’s left pane.
- Click Startup on the pane next to that.
- Click the Context Menu tab.
- Select your unwanted options.
- Click the Disable button.
My thanks to Flashorn for suggesting CCleaner in the original forum discussion. Although I’ve used this program for years, I didn’t know about this feature until I read his post.
Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector writes about technology and cinema. Email your tech questions to him at answer@pcworld.com, or post them to a community of helpful folks on the PCW Answer Line forum. Follow Lincoln on Twitter, or subscribe to the Answer Line newsletter, e-mailed weekly.