Question

I heard that it is possible to add simple items (without icon, just plain text) to the Windows Explorer Shell context menu by only deploying of specially prepared registry entries with my application installer. I tried to do it according to according to several posts I found on some forums. But that posts are old (earlier 2004 year) and looks like they are outdated - I tested it on all operating systems most popular among of my customers (Windows XP SPx and different editions of Windows Vista) but my menu items were not shown in the Windows Explorer Shell context menu.

Does this method still workable? I know it is not documented and is not recommended according to Microsoft Guidelines, but it worked in past (on Windows 98).

Answer 

Unfortunately, looks like you were misinformed by someone. The only valid (and the only working on all types of Windows operating system, including latest) is to add menu items using COM-Server interoperation mechanism.

How it works: operation system, when context menu was called by user, calls every of the special COM-servers, registered on computer, to dynamically populate menu items, using OS kernel-level, unmanaged function calls.

Appending of menu items to the Windows Explorer Context Menu using kernel-level interoperation servers is the only valid and advised by Microsoft Corporation (producer of Windows family operating systems) method. Appending menu items over registry keys worked only on several outdated operating systems and is not recommend according to Microsoft Guidelines, because it does not working on all new Windows-family operation system versions: Windows XP beginning from SP1 and on all types of Windows Vista.

So, it is not possible to add your menu items to Windows Explorer Shell context menu by simple appending of some keys to registry without of kernel-level interoperation server using.

Windows Explorer Context Menu strongly simplified appending of your custom items to the Windows Explorer Context menu. To add your custom items to the Windows Explorer Shell context menu you should not use unmanaged C++ code and handle operating system unmanaged function calls. All you need - is to write several lines of code describing menu items you want to add and call from your program as described in the step-by-step tutorial from Windows Explorer Context Menu help.

Do not want to add context menu-showing code to your application? Then you may create an empty application (without the form or console window) and add your items appending code at this application start-up. Let it to be installed with your program and run it from your program installer.

So, now you see - the easiest way to add your custom items to the Windows Explorer Shell context menu is to use such user-friendly development component as Windows Explorer Context Menu. If you still did not have it you may buy it using the buttons below.