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Microsoft reveals customizable context menu for Windows users - how to try it out
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Right-clicking your mouse in Windows 11 File Explorer displays a context-sensitive menu with commands you can run on your current file, folder, or other item. But the more applications you install, the more crowded and chaotic that menu becomes, making it difficult to navigate and use. Thankfully, Microsoft finally has a solution in the wings.
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In its latest blog for Windows Insiders, Microsoft touted its upcoming new customizable context menu. With the new menu, you'll be able to add commands you use regularly and remove those you don't want. The overarching goal is to reduce the clutter and streamline the menu based on your own preferences.
"Today, we're excited to announce an updated context menu that delivers a faster, simpler, and more customizable experience," Microsoft said in the blog. "The new design reduces top-level clutter, keeps commonly used actions easy to access, and introduces a new Settings experience that gives you more control over what appears in the menu."
This isn't the first time Microsoft has attempted to ease the challenges of using the context menu. Older versions of Windows saddled you with a menu that grew longer and more unwieldy as you installed more applications.
With Windows 11, the company tried to address that problem by unveiling a new, modern, and simpler menu with only core commands. But you still have to turn to the older menu to find the additional commands you want, which defeats the whole purpose. By customizing the new menu, you'll hopefully no longer need to revert to the older legacy one to find those extra commands.
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To preview the new customizable menu, you must be running the latest Windows 11 Insider build, specifically build 26340.9212. Since these insider builds can be unstable, you'll want to run this on a spare PC or a virtual machine. But that's only part of the equation. The new menu hasn't officially rolled out for insiders just yet, so there's one more step.
Thanks to a tip from the helpful phantomofearth account on X, you must also install a free utility called Vivetool, available on the program's GitHub page. With Vivetool installed, open a command prompt as an administrator and navigate to the folder that contains the Vivetool files. At the command prompt, type: vivetool /enable /id: 60813048.