I recently had to update one of my systems to Windows 11.
I’ve tried giving it a fair chance, but one thing that immediately annoyed me was the new right click menu in File Explorer. Most of the options I actually use are hidden behind “Show more options”, which means an extra click every single time.
Maybe it’s a small thing, but when you spend a lot of time moving files around, those extra clicks get old very quickly.
After some searching, I found a registry tweak that brings back the classic context menu.
Open Command Prompt as Administrator and run:
reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve
Then restart File Explorer or sign out and back in. If you ever want to go back to the default Windows 11 menu, run:
reg.exe delete "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}" /f
That’s it.
The command doesn’t directly tell Windows “use the old context menu.” Instead, it uses a registry trick that causes Explorer to fall back to the classic menu.
When you run:
reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve
it creates this registry path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
└─ Software
└─ Classes
└─ CLSID
└─ {86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}
└─ InprocServer32
and sets the default value of InprocServer32 to an empty string.
Normally, a CLSID identifies a COM object (a Windows component), and InprocServer32 points to the DLL that implements it. By creating this special CLSID with an empty implementation, Explorer encounters a condition that makes it bypass the modern Windows 11 context menu code and use the legacy Windows 10-style menu instead.
A few important details:
HKCU= Current User, so the change affects only your account.- No system files are modified.
- No software is installed.
- The tweak is easily reversible by deleting the key.
Deleting the key:
reg.exe delete "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}" /f
removes the override, so Explorer goes back to the default Windows 11 context menu.
In short: the command creates a fake COM registration in your user registry that causes Windows Explorer to fall back to the classic context menu implementation.
I still don’t understand why something as simple as a right-click menu needed to be redesigned in the first place, but at least there’s an easy way to get the old one back.
:)