A Complete Tutorial to Customize Desktop Context Menu in Windows XP Using Resource Hacker

You might be using the Desktop context menu since a long time in Windows but did you know that you can customize it to your needs? You can add/remove items from the context menu, you can re-arrange items, you can group those items, you can add your name in the context menu, you can add an image in context menu, you can add your favorite application shortcut in context menu, you can enable "View" menu in context menu. Phew... There are lots of things which you can do with Desktop context menu.

So this tutorial will help you in fully customize the Desktop context menu in Windows XP. So tighten your seat belts and get ready for our journey.

The default Windows XP Desktop context menu looks as following:

and following are a few examples of the customized Desktop context menu which you'll get after following this tutorial:

So without wasting any time, lets start the tutorial:

How to Edit the Desktop Context Menu?

First question comes how will you edit the whole Desktop context menu? To edit it, you'll need Resource Hacker. If you don't know about Resource hacker, then visit this link.

To customize the Desktop context menu, we'll need to edit "%windir%\System32\Shell32.dll" file in Resource hacker. When you'll open "Shell32.dll" file in Resource hacker, you'll see various folders in left-side pane like Bitmap, Menu, String Table. Dialog, etc. We'll only need to edit "Menu" and "String Table" folders for our task.

Customizing Menu Items Text:

To change any menu item text, just replace its name to your desired name. e.g. I have changed almost all menu items names in the given screenshots, Refresh has been renamed to Reload Icons, New has been renamed to Create, Properties has been renamed to Personalize, etc.

Almost all menu items name can be changed in "Menu -> 215". So go to "215" menu in Resource Hacker and change your desired menu item text enclosed in "" and then click on "Compile Script" button. For example, To change "Refresh" to "Reload Icons":

Change following line:

MENUITEM "R&efresh", 28931, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED

To:

MENUITEM "Rel&oad Icons", 28931, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED

To change "Properties" text, you'll need to edit "Menu -> 220".

A few menu items like "Lock Web Items on Desktop", "Show Desktop Icons" and "Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard" are stored in "Menu -> 218".

To change "New" menu item's text, go to "String Table -> 1895" and in right-side pane, change text of "30315" line.

Removing Menu Items:

If you want to remove any particular menu item, then simply select its line of code and delete it and then click on "Compile Script" button. For example, if you want to delete "Refresh" from context menu, then delete following line from "Menu -> 215":

MENUITEM "R&efresh", 28931, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED

Grouping Menu Items:

You can also group menu items to save some menu space and to make it more organized. To group menu items, you'll need to add some extra code.

First add following lines of code at the place where you want to show the main group:

POPUP "Put_Group_Label", 0, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED, 0
{
}

Replace "Put_Group_Label" with any desired text which you want to show in context menu.

Now you'll need to cut paste the desired menu items code between the curly braces.

For example, as in the screenshot I have grouped "View" and "Arrange Icons as" menu items in "Icons Menu". What I did, I pasted the above mentioned code just before the "View" menu item code line and then moved the lines of "View" and "Arrange Icons as" menu items between curly braces.

Its a bit complex task and require some practice.

Adding Image in Desktop Context Menu:

To add an image in context menu, visit following tutorial:

Add an Image in Desktop/Explorer Context Menu in Windows XP

Adding Your Favorite Application Shortcut in Desktop Context Menu:

You can also add any favorite application shortcut to context menu, like Firefox, Media Player, Winamp, etc. To know about it, visit following tutorial:

Add Your Favorite Program Shortcut in Desktop Context Menu in Windows XP

Enable "View" Menu in Desktop Context Menu:

"View" menu is not present in Desktop context menu. After applying following tutorial you'll be able to get "View" menu in Desktop context menu just like Windows Vista:

How to enable VIEW Menu on Desktop in Windows XP

Add Your Name or Any Desired String in Desktop Context Menu:

As you can see in the screenshot, I have put my name at top in context menu. You can also do the same with the help of following tutorial:

How to Add Your Name in Desktop Context Menu in Windows XP?

PS: If you face problems while changing the menu items text, grouping them, enabling view menu, etc, then you can use my ready-made code for it.

Just download the following text file, copy its code and replace the existing code in "Menu -> 215" with this new code. Click on "Compile Script" button and you'll get almost the same look as shown in screenshot. Now you can change the text, etc easily:

Download 215 Menu Code

NOTE: If you face problems while saving the file after editing in resource hacker, then make sure you have disabled WFP (Windows File Protection) service using WFP Patcher, it can be found in our “Download” section.

Also if you are getting error “Can’t create file…“, that means you have edited and saved the same file recently and there is a backup file which needs to be deleted before saving the file again. Go to the "System32" folder and you’ll see a file “Shell32_original.dll”. Delete it and try to save the file again.

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This article was posted in Resource Hacker, Windows XP.

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49 Comments

ingnition

thanx

i owe u 1
milla

hi thankx for your work
iam waiting for this type of article
thankxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
u r great
Riza

Awesome!
Jeet Chowdhury

VG TUSSI GREAT HO.....
invaderjohn

to bad this doesnt work for vista :/
do u know what resources it is for vistas rightclick menu?

would it be possible to add a "POPUP "&Apps", 504"

to the rightclick menu?
VG

^^ It should be same for Vista. Just look into "Shell32.dll.mui" file.
invaderjohn

ive tried it.. and it works in failsafe cuz it uses the classic rightclick.. but its not the same when u login to vista. seems to use a different file for the rightclick :/
apt

great .........
............boss

Thanks
Kevin

oh man!

I used the view option and it was cool!

but then i went deeper and tried to make menus like you did.

i did a lot then i replaced the files using replacer then my computer got an error message when turning on. we then tried so many things to fix it. we tried booting form a DOS floppy but it didnt see the hard drive.

then we tried even more things wasting our time but then we took out the hard drive and plugged it into another computer as an external drive and it saw the hard drive and we fixed it thanks to replacer's restore function.

the file was right there but with a "backup" attached to it.

just be careful everyone! and you'll save money and time.

but we knew what the problem was so we didnt need to spend money

I dont know what went wrong though. i clicked compile script and it sorted it all out

did i need to out the "&" symbols in the names? because thats weird
VG

^^ Thats really sad to know that you faced problems. Actually Shell32.dll is a system file and if you make a very small mistake, your system will become non-bootable. It seems that you did some mistake while editing the file.

As you asked, "&" symbol is used to defined shortcut key which is shown as underlined. Its optional.