How to restore the Windows 10 context menu in Windows 11
This article will explain how to restore the windows 10 context menu style after the upgrade to Windows 11 operating system.
Issue Description:
As you could have noticed after the update to Windows 11, the context menù is more compact and clean, but also annoying if you were used to the one in Windows 10.
There is the possibility to see the extended menu, as it was in Windows 10, but it cost one click more, and I don’t like to waste clicks!
How to Solve:
There is a fast way to restore the Windows 10 Context Menu style in Windows 11, and it consists of modifying a key in the Windows registers.
The easiest way restore the Windows 10 Context Menu Style is to create a script:
- Create a new txt empty file and rename it to Win10_Style_Context_Menu.reg (pay attention to correctly update the file extension from .txt to .reg)
- Write the following code into the file (open it with a text editor, like Notepad++:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32]
<br>@=""
- Now it’s enough a double click on the file just created to run the Script.
- Confirm the execution as in the image below with the button “Yes”
- As soon as the key has been updated, a message is shown to confirm the operation:
- To see the Windows 10 style context menu, a restart of the process “explorer.exe” is necessary
- Open the Task Manager with Ctrl+Alt+Del and find the process under the tab “Details”
- Select “explorer.exe” and press “Del”, then confirm the end of the process:
- After ending the process, just restart it: go to “File >> Create new task”
- Digit “explorer.exe” as in the image below
- Press “Ok”
Check the Solution:
Now when you right-click in a folder, you can see that the Contextual Menu has the Windows 10 Style as shown below:
You may have noticed that among the menu items, the possibility of creating a new empty text file is missing. If like me you absolutely need it, read here: Get back the “New Text File” option in the Windows 11 context menu.
Revert the Modification:
In case you want to revert the modification applied, and go back to the Windows 11 Context Menu style, just proceed as follow.
- Create a new txt empty file and rename it to Win11_Style_Context_Menu.reg (pay attention to correctly update the file extension from .txt to .reg)
- Write the following code into the file (open it with a txt editor, like Notepad++:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}]
- Now it’s enough a double click on the file just created to run the Script.
- Confirm the execution as in the image below with the button “Yes”
- As soon as the key has been updated, a message is shown to confirm the operation:
This time is not necessary to restart the process “explorer.exe”, and you can directly see that the Contextual menu is back to Windows 11 style.
