In another episode of "We're going to keep modifying Windows 11 because we love doing it", we come to its context menu. The Redmond giant decided to update the look of the menu and reduce several of its functions to simple icons... that have an awful design and are hard to identify. The good news is that we can restore the Windows 10 context menu in Windows 11 without difficulty. All we need is a small registry modification...
At first I didn't mind the idea of an updated context menu in Windows 11, but after using it for several weeks, I'm ready to go back to the previous design. My problem is with the main actions, now turned into icons: the only two I recognize easily are the scissors and the trash can. As for the rest, my brain insists on interpreting two slices of cheese (copy), a car split in half (rename), and an arrow escaping a box (share). As if that weren't enough, they look pretty bad in dark mode.
Maybe my muscle memory is too deep or I've become too old, but I know I'm not alone in wanting to restore the Windows 10 context menu in Windows 11. Fortunately, there's no need to do anything strange or download dedicated programs. A simple hack in the Registry will be more than enough, and if you've been following our news this week, then you already have everything you need.
Learn to restore the Windows 10 context menu in Windows 11
The easiest way is to get the MajorGeeks Windows Tweaks package, unzip its contents, go to the Windows 11 section, and enter the folder "Windows 10 Context Menu in Windows 11 - Enable or Disable". There you'll see three files: a link to the MajorGeeks tutorial, a registry file with the patch to restore the context menu, and another that reinstalls the Windows 11 default settings (Default Context Menu).
- A link to the MajorGeeks tutorial
- A registry file with the patch to restore the context menu
- Another that reinstalls the Windows 11 default settings (Default Context Menu)
Double-click the file, confirm the three warnings from the operating system, and finally click OK. The funny thing is that you need to restart the computer for the change to take effect, but if you want to go back to the original Windows 11 menu, the restart is not mandatory.
If we look closely at the modification, we'll see that the patch adds two keys in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID. The first one is called {86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}, and the second is located inside it, with the name InprocServer32. Neither needs extra values, and their presence is enough to restore the previous menu design. Going back to the default just deletes the first key.
And so we come to the end. If you wanted to know how to restore the Windows 10 context menu in Windows 11, this will be of great help to you. Good luck!
