Removing New Context Menu Items in Windows

Right clicking on your desktop will give you a drop down context menu with a few new file creation shortcuts. The “New” context menu will allow you to quickly and easily create a new folder, shortcut, blank document, and many others.

In this article I will show you how to remove many of these “New” file shortcut items from your Windows 10 desktop context menu. Alternatively, you can watch a short video or just get the various context menu links if you know what you’re doing.

 

Hide New Context Menu on Desktop

To hide or remove any of these “New” desktop context menu file creation shortcuts, we would first need to obtain the file extension for the program that appears within the menu.

Next, open the Windows Registry Editor on your PC by pressing the Windows + R keys on your keyboard. Within the Open field on the Run window type “regedit” and press enter. Select “Yes” from the User Account Control prompt. Then locate the file name extension within the following folder:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

Expand that key folder by double clicking on it. Scroll down and locate the .docx folder and double click on that to open it. Then double click on “Word.Document.12” which will reveal the “ShellNew” folder. Rename that folder to anything you wish. Upon doing so you will notice that the “New > Microsoft Word Document” context menu item is now gone.

Repeat this process for any other context menu items you wish to remove. Note that these new context menu items will usually reappear upon any software update. Simply repeat the process to remove them.

To save you time, I have compiled a list of the most frequently displayed context menu items below. Again, simply rename the “ShellNew” folder to something else, such as “_ShellNew” or “xShellNew“.

 

New Context Menu Links

 

Remove Shortcut Context Menu

• Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.lnk\ShellNew

Remove Bitmap image Context Menu

• Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.bmp\ShellNew
• There is no entry for Windows 11. You will need to Uninstall “Paint” to hide the .bmp context menu.

Remove Compressed (zipped) Folder Context Menu

• Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.zip\CompressedFolder\ShellNew

Remove Text Document Context Menu

• Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.txt\ShellNew

Remove Microsoft Word Document Context Menu

• Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.docx\Word.Document.12\ShellNew

Remove Microsoft Excel Worksheet Context Menu

• Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xlsx\Excel.Sheet.12\ShellNew

Remove Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation Context Menu

• Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.pptx\PowerPoint.Show.12\ShellNew

Remove Microsoft Publisher Document Context Menu

• Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.pub\Publisher.Document.14\ShellNew

Remove Microsoft Access Database Context Menu

• Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.accdb\Access.Application.14\ShellNew

Remove Microsoft Access Database Context Menu

• Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mdb\ShellNew

Remove Adobe Photoshop Bridge Context Menu

• Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Bridge
  • Right-click “Bridge” and “Delete“

 

Removing Context Menu Items Video

 

 

Auto Prevent Context Menu Addition After Update

Eventually, updates to Windows will re-create the context menu items. This can be annoying to have to constantly access the registry editor to remove them manually. So below are instructions for an attempt to block these Context Menu items from being re-introduced after an update. Here I am basically attempting to block permissions so that it cannot be altered.

NOTE: I have not tested this and it make break your computer or result in the loss of your data! Do not attempt this on anything other than a test computer and ensure that you have a working backup ready.

 

 

Conclusion

I welcome your thoughts, questions or suggestions on my article how to remove Windows context menu items.

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Let me know if you found any errors within my article or if I may further assist you by answering any additional questions you may have.

 

Editors Note:

• This article was revised on July 22nd, 2023 to include Windows 11 registry editor locations to the context menu items.
• This article was revised on July 10th, 2022 to include instructions on blocking the creation of new context menu items via the registry editor which has not been fully tested.
• This article was first published on April 17th, 2019 and was revised on Aug. 20th, 2020 to include the registry editor locations to the various new file context menu items.