Question

I would like to remove all file types but one from right click menu resulting on right-clicking on background in windows XP (and then going to “new”).
I tried HKCR ->Directory ->Background->sheelex in the registry and there is “new” item but it just have one value.
The problem is I have like 20 file types there but I only need one to save time looking for that .txt every time (to be sure no random stuff is added to new file, I am editing extension myself every time anyway).
Where do I find content of this menu ?

Answer 1

This topic is explained here: Extending the New Submenu
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc144101(v=vs.85).aspx#new

To do the opposite, you need to search the registry for below key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.XXX\ShellNew

Where XXX is a file extension name. e.g.: bmp, rtf, txt, etc.
You can do this by using below batch file.

@ECHO OFF
REG EXPORT HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT "%TEMP%\REGLIST.TMP"
FIND /I "\SHELLNEW]" "%TEMP%\REGLIST.TMP"
DEL "%TEMP%\REGLIST.TMP"
PAUSE

It will show something like this.

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.doc\ShellNew]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.dpp\ShellNew]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.Hxs\Hxs\ShellNew]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.lnk\ShellNew]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.rtf\ShellNew]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.txt\ShellNew]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.zip\ShellNew]

Note that not all ShellNew subkey will be displayed on the New submenu since it must follow the requirements as decribed in the above link.

To remove the New File menu entry, delete the ShellNew registry subkey.

For example, if the file extension name is dpp, then registry key would be:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.dpp\ShellNew

And to remove the ShellNew subkey, you can use Registry Editor or the command line REG tool.
For REG example:

REG DELETE HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.dpp\ShellNew