First of all, open the programs in question and look through their options
to see if you can unselect any "integration" or "context menu" options.
Otherwise, you can edit the registry.
Before you make any changes in the registry, back up the following registry
keys which will be affected.
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder]
Do this by opening Regedit, find the relevant sub-folder, right-click on it
and select Export. Make sure the "Selected Branch" option is selected under
Export Range, then enter a descriptive name and save it somewhere safe. Do
that for each one of the four sub-folders above. If anything goes wrong you
can double-click on these files and everything is quickly fixed.
* Go to the following sub-folders and delete references to programs you know
have set up context menu entries. Here are all the places you should look
in:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\OpenWithList]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]
* As you're removing all the unwanted program entries, you should see the
effects immediately - no reboot required. Remove an entry from the
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers] subfolder for example
and open Explorer, then right click on your hard drive name and you should
see the corresponding program you removed in the registry is gone from the
context menu too.
If any of the programs whose context menu entries you've removed start
displaying strange behaviour, restore the registry entries you backed up
before you started or just reinstall the program. As long as you only delete
program entries and none of the default Windows entries, all the normal
context menu items will still remain.
Disclaimer: Modifying the registry can cause serious problems that may
require you to reinstall your operating system. Use the information provided
at your own risk.
