Years ago I was a salesperson for a large insurance company. Sitting in a client’s office (an unhappy client’s office) I asked to use the phone to call the home office to get the answer to his very pointed question. As I dialed our toll-free number, engaging in silent prayer as I pushed each button, it occurred to me that I hadn’t ever used the main toll-free number before. It was picked up on the third ring and answered by a cheerful person who was chewing gum so loudly I could almost see her jaw working. I was so glad I had dialed rather than my client.

On the way back to my office, I envisioned the confrontation she and I were going to have. I was going to tell her, in no uncertain terms, how unprofessional her behavior was. Chewing gum into the ears of the hundreds of callers she must talk to in a day—what was she thinking? Since it was a thirty-mile drive back, I had time to think through my initial plan and found it lacking. I needed to talk to her leader. No one, it seemed to me, had helped her understand the importance of her job. When she answered the phone, she represented the entire organization to the person on the other end of the line. I was pretty certain that had never occurred to her. Her leader had never asked her how she envisioned her contribution to the success of the entire company.

As a leader, it is fundamental to your job that each person you lead, whether they’re accountants or janitors, understands that they play a crucial part in your organization’s success. If you don’t know how to explain that, or worse, don’t believe that statement is true, stop calling yourself a leader. It is the leader’s job to create the context in which each member of their team does their work. You need to explain it in the beginning, watch for understanding in the daily work, and reward it on a regular basis.

I talked to the receptionist’s leader about the gum chewing. His blank-stare response helped me understand her behavior. I started telling my clients to call in directly to my administrative assistant when they needed to talk to someone in the company. She never chewed gum. I asked her lots of questions—this one on her first day.

Removin’ Items

A lot of programs you install will add themselves to de right-click menu of your files and/or folders. And most times, you have no choice in de matter and, as a result, your right-click menu can get very lon’ with added items you don’t even use. The last person I was helpin’ with this had a right context menu so lon’ that de Rename option was no longer visible!

Fortunately, you can easily remove those unwanted menu items, if you know de registry values to edit. And it’s not at all difficult once you know de keys responsible for de additions.

For Files, de secret lies in de “context menu handlers” under de shellex subkey for “All Files” which, in de registry, is nothin’ but an asterisk - like a dos wildcard, which means de values entered apply to all files. It is at de very top of de Root key, right here:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

Click de de + sign next to de ContextMenuHandlers key, to expand it. Now you will see some of de programs that have added items to your right-click menu. Simply delete de program keys you don’t want.

Yup! It’s that simple. If deletin’ makes you uneasy, just export de key before deletin’ it. Or, instead of deletin’ de values, disable them. Simply double click de default value for de program on de right hand pane and rename de clsid value by placin’ a period or dash in front of it.

ie; - {b5eedee0-c06e-11cf-8c56-444553540000}

Then exit de registry, refresh, and right click a file to see if de item was removed from de menu.
Some programs - like WinZip or WinRar - will add several items to your right click menu but all of them will be removed by deletin’ or disablin’ deir one context menu handler.

Note that de above key only applies to de right click menu of files. To remove entries from de right click context menu of folders, you need to navigate to de Folder and Drive keys:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

All you have to do is follow de same procedure as for Files - eider disable or delete items you wish to remove.

Addin’ Items

Addin’ Items to de right click menu of Files and Folders is also fairly simple usin’ de Registry. It just involves de creation of a few new keys for each item you wish to add. You edit de same keys used for removin’ items. Let’s use Notepad as an example of an item you’d like to add to de right click menu of all your files or folders.

For folders, go to this key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder

Click de + sign next to Folder and expand it so that de Shell key is visible. Right click de Shell key and choose New>Key and name de key Notepad or whatever else you’d prefer (whatever de key is named is what will appear in de right-click menu). Now right click de new key you made and create anoder key named Command. Then, in de right hand pane, double click “Default” and enter Notepad.exe as de value. Exit de registry, refresh, and right click any folder. Notepad should now be on de context menu.

For files, go here again:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*

Expand de * key and see if a Shell key exists. If it does exist, follow de same procedure as for folders. If it does not exist, you’ll have to create a new Shell first. Just right click de * key and choose New>Key and name it Shell. Then right click de Shell key and continue on de same way you did for addin’ items to de right click menu of folders. Once done, Notepad should appear as an option in de right click menu of all your files.

Would you like to be able to right click any folder in Explorer and print its contents? You can add this option to de context menu by followin’ dese steps:

First, you need to create a batch file called Printdir.bat. Open Notepad or anoder text editor and type (or cut and paste) this text:

@echo off
dir %1 /-p /o:gn > “%temp%\Listin’”
start /w notepad /p “%temp%\Listin’”
del “%temp%\Listin’”
exit

Now, in de Save As dialog box, type “%windir%\Printdir.bat” (without de quotation marks) and click de Save button.

Click Start, Control Panel, Folder Options.
Click de File Types tab, and den click File Folder.
Click de Advanced button.
Click de New button.

In de Action box, type “Print Directory Listin’” (without de quotation marks).

In de Application used to perform action box, type “Printdir.bat” (without de quotation marks).

Click OK in all three dialog boxes to close de dialog boxes.

You’re not quite finished yet! Now you need to edit de Registry, so open your favorite Registry Editor.

Navigate to HKEY CLASSES ROOT\Directory\shell.

Right click on “default” and select Modify.
In de File Data box, type “none” (without de quotation marks).

Click OK and close de Registry Editor.

Now when you right click a folder, you’ll see de option to Print Directory Listin’. Selectin’ it will print de contents of de folder.