Troubleshooting Program to control adds and subtractions from context menus--know one?

[conceptualclarity]

Describe the problem

My context menus get cluttered with useless and unwanted entries.

What have you tried?

I use programs to edit the context menu after the fact.

I wish I could be notified every time a program undertakes to add or subtract context menu items(s), shell extensions as they are often called. There are programs I find useful, such as LiberKey, that insist on adding completely useless and pointless context menu entries that clutter my context menus and ultimately make them harder to use.

I get much more upset when a program butchers my context menu, removing other programs' entries. I believe FileMenu Tools did that. I have an Advanced System Care right-click entry that is excellent and convenient for fixing obsolete shortcuts. One time a program removed that item, and I had a very difficult time getting it back.

I know there are programs for editing the context menu after the fact and I use them:

Auslogics BoostSpeed, Easy Context Menu, Glary Utilities, and Wise Care (actually I use the Neptune rebranding which doesn't install a cranky driver)

None are remotely near perfect in detecting what is in one's context menus. Sometimes I have to resort to registry editing. If anybody has any other suggestions for good context menu editors, they are welcome.

However what I really want is to be able to stop unwanted context menu changes before they happen. Is there a program that lets me do that?

 

[roger_m]

However what I really want is to be able to stop unwanted context menu changes before they happen. Is there a program that lets me do that?

I don't think there is any such program. On one of my computers the context menu is a mess, due to having installed many programs and like you I haven't been to happy the the programs that edit it. On my main laptop, I'm keeping the number of programs installed to a minimum, which means the context menu will not get overloaded.

 

[RodM1956]

I think one of my favs does this. See Pegasun 5.0 has free and paid version. NICE tool.

Pegasun System Utilities - Maximize PC performance and battery life

System Utilities significantly speeds up your PC's performance, so it works even better than when you first bought it. It offers over 28 tools for speeding up, cleaning, tuning, repairing, and securing your PC.

pegasun.com

 

[RodM1956]

Also... Easy Context Menu

 

[conceptualclarity]

I think one of my favs does this. See Pegasun 5.0 has free and paid version. NICE tool.

Pegasun System Utilities - Maximize PC performance and battery life

System Utilities significantly speeds up your PC's performance, so it works even better than when you first bought it. It offers over 28 tools for speeding up, cleaning, tuning, repairing, and securing your PC.

pegasun.com

I have an old giveaway of that as Synei System Utilities.

Also... Easy Context Menu

Thanks. As I said, context menu editors are fine, and I use this one, but stopping unwanted alteration of the context menu before it takes hold would be great.

I don't think there is any such program. On one of my computers the context menu is a mess, due to having installed many programs and like you I haven't been to happy the the programs that edit it. On my main laptop, I'm keeping the number of programs installed to a minium, which means the context menu will not got overloaded.

I don't know why it is that each context menu program is so limited in what it detects of what is currently in your context menus, but fortunately they don't all detect the same things. And they really do get rid of what you tell them to get rid of. But sometimes that's only till the next time you run the program that insisted on forcing its way into your context menu .

I know there are programs with names like registry watcher, and I wonder if they could help here, since context menu modification is always writing to the registry as best I can tell.

 

[conceptualclarity]

I'm thinking seriously about using this program MJ Registry Watcher for guarding my context menus. I will have to get all the right registry keys for the context menus assembled, which is a task.

I tried to do something of that sort with WinPatrol, but it didn't take.