Customize PC: How To Add New Items To Context Menu in Windows 7 / 8 With Icons

You want to customize your PC? How about adding new items to your context menu, e.g. notepad++, Firefox, Steam or any other program?

Modifying Registry To Add New Context Menu Items

Tip: Before you follow this, make sure to backup your Windows 7 registry , respectively your Windows 8 registry

1. Open the registry editor
2. Uncollapse HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\

3. Create a new key as seen here (right-click on Shell and click New -> Key)

4. Enter a name of your choice, I called the context menu item “GetIt” (I’m retrieving some information via batch script)

5. Create a new subkey called command as seen here:

6. Ok, if you now right-click on a file within the Windows explorer you can now see a new item called GetIt or whatever you called it. We are now adding a command that should be executed.

7. Select the key command in the left pane and then in the right pane, double-click on Default and enter the path to your program or batch script e.g. C:\Windows\notepad.exe or C:\test\batch.bat or C:\Program Files\Mozilla\Firefox.exe and so on

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Add Steam, Firefox, Programs To Context Menu

8. As seen on the image above, you can simply enter a path to a program. Keep in mind you need to select the subkey command first or it won’t work if you modify the REG_SZ entry for “GetIt”

This is how you can also add notepad.exe or Firefox to your context menu quite easily.

Simply enter as path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe and you can start Steam from your right-click menu

Adding Context Menu Items With Icons

Ok, you have successfully added Steam to your context menu? Cool, now let’s add the icon!

1. Create a key for Steam, including command subkey with path to Steam as explained above

2. Click on Steam and in the right pane right-click and click on New -> Expandable String Value

3. Enter the name Icon

4. Enter the path to your Steam.exe file again e.g. C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe (it includes the icon file)

As you can see it’s very easy to add new context menu items that you can quickly access via right-click. You can now completely customize your PC and add programs that you launch frequently or batch scripts to increase your productivity.