Registration Format for File System Shortcut Menu Extensions

4/19/2010

The registration format for file system shortcut menu extensions is as follows:

HKCR\progID\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\CLSID
   @ = MenuDisplayName
   DelayLoad = dword:DLoad
  • progID
    The Programmatic Identifier (PROGID) of the application associated with this particular file type. This is the default key value for this file type.

    As an example on Windows Mobile , Word Mobile uses docfile as the default value for the key HKCR\.doc.

  • CLSID
    The Class Identifier (CLSID) of your shortcut menu extension component.
  • MenuDisplayName
    A string specifying the shortcut menu item text that appears in the shortcut menu.
  • Dload
    Specifies whether to delay-load the shortcut menu extension. When delay-loaded, the IContextMenu object is neither initialized nor called until the menu item is invoked. Only one shortcut menu extension can be delay-loaded at a time.

    To delay-load the shortcut menu extension, include the DelayLoad value name and give it the value DelayLoad=dword:1. If DelayLoad is missing or set to 0, the shell calls IContextMenu::QueryContextMenu during the call to SHLoadContextMenuExtensions and enumerates the shortcut menu items to add.

Remarks

File Explorer and the other document lists have an IDataObject abstraction interface. The IDataObject::GetData method supports the CF_HDROP format, passed as FORMATETC.cfFormat, and returns a medium of type TYMED_HGLOBAL. The STGMEDIUM.hGlobal attribute contains a DROPFILES structure.

See Also

Tasks

How to Extend Shortcut Menus

Concepts

How to Register a File System Shortcut Menu
Registration Format for Application Shortcut Menu Extensions
Menu Overview