[ARTICLE] Restore old Right-click Context menu in Windows 11

Sumit 44,621 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2025-06-26T08:28:22.2133333+00:00

Starting with Windows 11, the context menu in File Explorer is refreshed, offering a compact design based on modern principles. However, the refreshed context menu shows fewer items compared to the Legacy Context menu. This article discusses how to restore the Legacy Context menu in Windows 11, which shows up by default.

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Recycle bin modern context menu

You can display the Legacy Right-Click Context menu by clicking "Show more options" at the end of the list or pressing Shift+F10. If you want it to be the default, you need to add a registry entry below so that every time you right-click a File or Folder, it shows the Legacy Context menu by default.

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Restore the old Context Menu in Windows 11

  1. Right-click the Start button and choose Windows Terminal.
  2. Copy the command from below, paste it into the Windows Terminal Window, and press Enter.

reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve

  1. Restart File Explorer or your computer for the changes to take effect. You would see the Legacy Right Click Context menu by default.

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Command in Windows Terminal to Restore old context menu

The Registry change masks the new COM object that executes the compact menus with the "Show more options" entry. Once you get this performed, Explorer reverts to the Legacy context menu. 

Restore Modern Context menus in Windows 11

To undo this change, in a Terminal Window, execute this command:

reg.exe delete "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}" /f

Restart the File Explorer or Computer for the changes to take effect.

These steps can help you to enable the old context menu in Windows 11.

Sumit (@_sumitdh) / X'

Also read:

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Apps

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13 answers

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  1. Anderson, Thomas 15 Reputation points
    2025-11-14T23:32:00.15+00:00

    Why is Microsoft paring down every menu with every iteration of Windows? All it does is force the end user to click through more windows and have to search for the icons more. With this new right-click the Cut/Copy/Paste options can be either at the top or the bottom, depending on where the cursor is on the screen, thus forcing the end user to have to quickly search for where it will be. It's just insane. They need to fire the marketing department and get some rednecks in there who can just make it dead simple and intuitive like it was prior to the last decade. It's just been one dumber version after another, pandering to the unintelligent masses. So frustrating. On an actual related note, I couldn't do this because of our company's restrictive policies :( So once again I've got to click through multiple menus just to do the simple things that were a single click in the past.

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  2. SD 0 Reputation points
    2026-02-24T11:37:39.27+00:00

    Doesn't work. I added the key successfully and restarted but the new context menus still display. Who was the genius that decided to remove the menu selections "copy" and "delete"??? I shouldn't have to scroll to the bottom of the context menu and click "Select More Options" to then select "copy" or "delete" to get this extremely basic functionality. Thanks for doubling my work!

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  3. Mark Hostettler 25 Reputation points
    2026-04-22T13:18:34.3333333+00:00

    For all of you having problems making this work I found that I was not setting the "Default" to the proper value. the default MUST be set to "", NOT (value not set). I chased my tail for an hour before finding this fine detail. Now it works in both HKCU for setting to a single user or HKLM for setting for all users. Hope this helps.

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  4. TommyDDR 5 Reputation points
    2026-07-30T12:34:13.1933333+00:00

    Works for me 25H2 :

    reg add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /ve /t REG_SZ /d "" /f

    /d "" is mandatory, if default value, it doesn't works.

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  5. Burke-Chris 0 Reputation points
    2026-04-06T18:37:58.47+00:00

    Could not make this work on our newly deployed machines anymore, afraid Windows may have started messing with this method. Extremely annoying for businesses that modify the registry to add additional context menu options for file types.

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