15

In Windows-11, there are two context menus in Windows explorer (go to a file and right-click):

new context menu

When you click "Show more options", only then you see:

old-style context menu

You might see the menu option "Scan with Microsoft Defender" in the second one (I just can't believe this option is not accessible by default).

As I find actively checking for threats very important, I'd like to see that option immediately, and what way to achieve that is better than simply not showing the new context menu, but showing the old-style immediately?

Does anybody know what configuration changes I need to do for that?

A similar question has been asked already, but this one is not answered and talks about modifying the new context menu while I'm all about not displaying it.

Improve this question
2
  • 5
    Do you expect the manual scan to find more than Defender's existing "on access" scan would (e.g. when the file was downloaded, or before it runs)? Commented Jan 27 at 11:37
  • 1
    @grawity: not necessarily, but by performing manually, I'm 100% sure that it has actually been executed. Commented Jan 27 at 11:54

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
19

I'm not currently able to test, but Information in this xda-developers post explains you can disable the Modern Context Menu using a registry edit.

This should completely disable the Modern Menu and default to the Classic.

please be careful when editing the registry!

To disable the context menu:

reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve

To revert the changes, delete the key:

reg.exe delete "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}" /f

The registry edit(s) do not take effect immediately, you need to restart Explorer first. You can restart explorer.exe using Task Manager or just restart the computer.

Improve this answer
3
  • Minor point: while it may be the case that the OP's "scan with defender" option shows up on the "normal" classic context menu, not all options show up there and the "show more options" context menu will still need to be brought up with the shift key as in the other answer. Commented Jan 28 at 19:31
  • 2
    I don't think the Classic menu has the Show more options option. If an application only provides entries in the Modern menu they will likely be unavailable if you use this edit. I think it disables the Modern Menu entirely rather than swapping Modern and Classic with the click and Shift+click methods. (again, cant test so might not be true) Commented Jan 28 at 21:54
  • Yeah there is no "show more" in the classic context, so the shift+click for an extended context menu is the only way AFAIK. I use this in the classic context in win10 especially for the "copy file as path" command. Commented Jan 28 at 22:27
21

I don't see another simple option mentioned. While not exactly what asked for, nevertheless it's a valuable option in case you're on someone else's machine or can't/don't want to make registry modifications.

Simply holding down the SHIFT key while right-clicking will also open the classic menu immediately.

Improve this answer
0

The winutil tool by Chris Titus (no affiliation by me) has the functionality to change the right click context menu as you are looking for, see the description of the functionality here: https://winutil.christitus.com/dev/tweaks/z--advanced-tweaks---caution/rightclickmenu/. You can see the powershell commands used by the tool to change the menu and to change it back. Go to the main page of the tool on how to use/install it.

The relevant PowerShell Command used to set the registry entry seems to be

New-Item -Path \"HKCU:\\Software\\Classes\\CLSID\\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\" -Name \"InprocServer32\" -force -value \"\"

As far as I understand the tool changes the registry entry and restarts the explorer just as NickSlash is describing in his answer. But with one or two layers of abstraction.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.