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Windows 11 introduces a significant visual change when you upgrade from Windows 10. One of the core Windows elements that changed with the upgrade was the context menu.
On Windows 11, your context menu is more compact and adds options to use third-party apps like WinZip into a submenu called Show more options. Plus, the copy, paste, cut, and share buttons are now at the top of the context menu.
Whatever issue you may have with the new context menu, you should know that it’s fixable. You can return the new context menu to the old one at any time by following these steps.
Get the Classic Context Menu on Windows 11 using Registry
1. The only way to change Windows 11’s context menu to the Windows 10 version is through the Registry. Let’s search then open it in your Windows 11.
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID
3. Right click on the CLSID folder then create a new Key. This will create a new subkey under CLSID.
4. Rename the new created key to: {86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}
{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}
5. Once you’ve created a key, right-click on the new key from the left sidebar. Again, select New > Key. Name the key InprocServer32.
InprocServer32
6. By default, the InprocServer32 key’s value is (value not set). So, double-click on Default and set the value data as “”..
7. Restart Windows Explorer or you can restart your computer to take the changes go into effect. Once your computer reboots, the old context menu should be available again.
Get the Classic Context Menu on Windows 11 using Command
If you don’t want to do it manually, you can execute the below commands in an elevated PowerShell (Terminal) window to enable or disable the Windows 10 classic context menu in Windows 11.
1. Right-click on the Windows Start icon then select Windows Terminal (Admin).
Enable the classic menu in Windows 11
$key = 'HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32'
reg add $key /ve /d `"`" /f
Stop-Process -Name 'explorer' -Force
Disable the classic menu in Windows 11
reg delete 'HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}' /f
Stop-Process -Name 'explorer' -ForceGet the Classic Context Menu on Windows 11 using Batch file
If you want to switch between the modern and classic menu constantly. The above two method are not good. So, you need create a batch file to switch the mode quicker.
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