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How to Create Cascading Menus with the SubCommands Registry Entry

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In Windows 7 and later, you can use the SubCommands entry in the registry to create cascading menus by using the procedure given in this topic.

Instructions

Step 1:

Create a new subkey under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ProgID\shell, where ProgID is the file type for which you want to add a cascading menu. You can name this new subkey anything you'd like. For the remainder of this topic, we'll call it CascadeMenu, as shown in the following example.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
   ProgID
      shell
         CascadeMenu

Step 2:

Add an entry named "MUIVerb", of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ, to the CascadeMenu subkey. Assign this entry a string value such as "Test Cascade Menu". Normally, this string is provided as a resource reference in the form "@file, resource". The (Default) value for the CascadeMenu subkey should not be set.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
   ProgID
      shell
         CascadeMenu
            (Default)
            MUIVerb = Test Cascade Menu

Step 3:

Add an entry named "SubCommands", of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ, to the CascadeMenu subkey. Assign this entry a semicolon-delimited list of the verbs that should appear on the menu, in their desired order of appearance.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
   ProgID
      Shell
         CascadeMenu
            SubCommands = Windows.delete;Windows.properties;Windows.rename;Windows.cut;Windows.copy;Windows.paste

Step 4:

Populate the CommandStore subkey with verb implementations for any custom static verb implementation methods that you've used in your SubCommands entry; for example:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
   Software
      Microsoft
         Windows
            CurrentVersion
               Explorer
                  CommandStore
                     Shell
                        VerbName
                           command
                              (Default) = notepad.exe %1

Creating Static Cascading Menus