Add “Change Wallpaper”, “Change Theme”, “Change Screen Saver” and Many Other Useful Shortcuts in Windows Vista and 7 Desktop Context Menu

Do you want following Desktop context menu in your Windows?

Isn't it cool? You can access all your desired options by simply right-click on Desktop. It would be very easy and useful. You can access almost all Desktop Properties options directly from the Desktop itself.

It can be possible in Windows Vista, Server 2008 and Windows 7.

We would be using 2 tricks in this tutorial which we posted about long time back in following tutorials:

Add Your Favorite Application Shortcut in Desktop Context Menu in Windows Vista

Create Shortcuts to Themes, Desktop Background, Screen Saver, Display Settings and More

Windows Vista, Server 2008 and Windows 7 have a built-in feature which we revealed long time back. We can put our desired application shortcut in Desktop context menu which was not possible in Windows XP and other older versions.

So in this tutorial, we'll use the same trick to add shortcut in Desktop context menu and will use the shortcut commands to open various tabs present in Desktop Properties window like Theme, Wallpaper, Screen Saver, etc.

So here we start our tutorial:

1. Type regedit in RUN or Startmenu Search box and press Enter. It'll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell

3. Now we'll need to create a new key under "Shell" key. Right-click on "Shell" key and select "New -> Key". Give the new key any desired name e.g. "Change Theme" (without quotes).

4. Now we'll need to create another new key. Right-click on the new key which we created in the last step e.g. Change Theme and select "New -> Key". Give the new key name of command.

5. Now select "command" key and in right-side pane, you'll see "Default" String value. Double-click on it and set its value to as following:

control desk.cpl,,@themes

6. That's it. Now you'll have a new option "Change Theme" in Desktop context menu.

7. You can use the same steps 3-5 to add other options. Simply give the desired option label in Step 3 and set the required command in Step 5. Following are the required codes which you'll need to provide as "command" in step 5:

Change Wallpaper: control desk.cpl,,@desktop

Change Screen Saver: control desk.cpl,,1

Appearance: control desk.cpl,,2

Desktop Icons Settings: control desk.cpl,,0

DPI Scaling: dpiscaling

Window Colorization: explorer shell:::{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}\1\::{ED834ED6-4B5A-4bfe-8F11-A626DCB6A921}\pageColorization

8. That's it.

9. To remove any option, simply delete its key.

NOTE: To add "Display Settings" and "Gadgets" option, visit following tutorial:

Get Windows 7 Desktop Context Menu in Vista, Add “Display Settings” and “Gadgets” Options

PS: If you want ready-made registry scripts to add the shortcuts automatically in Desktop context menu, then download following ZIP file, extract it and you'll get several .REG files for adding each shortcut. Just double-click on the desired .REG file, it'll ask for confirmation, accept it and you have done:

Download Registry Script

Don't forget to visit PART-II

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This article was posted in Windows 7, Windows Vista.

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19 Comments

Nikolaj

WooooOOOOooooW COOOOOOOL
Robero aka Garry

Nice one VG. Can hardly keep up to you. Wish I knew 2% of what you know. I have learned

quite alot so far and hope to keep doing so with your valuable Tuts and information. It may

not be said enough but I for one extremely appreciate what you are doing as many people

may not know that you are doing all of this on your own time. They may not also know that

to pay for what you have given would be quite costly.For this I could never repay you at any

cost or any amounts of thankyou's. You are the best mate. With much respect to you !
raoul

i share the sentiment of robero. more power to you sir vg
oscq

Hmm.. I created a .bat file, inside that .bat file is this text
"start control desk.cpl,,@desktop
exit"

And it works, how can i get it to right click menu ?
VG

Thanks everyone. Its your love and support which encourages me to post these tutorials.
Michael Higham

Thanks! You are great!
viktor

sir vg i m new on ur site i want to know that how add contextmenu with icon
viktor

i want to change awindows rundll32.exe file's icon how can i do that.........
Peter

is this applicable to xp?
Peter

Sir vg can you do registry file that automatically delete temp files in vista. i was shock when my harddisk has too small space available. then i browse and found out that in windows/temp it has almost 35g. i delete them and yet every time i check it always have temp files. can you help me to do with this.

i used this can you improve it more.

RD /S /q "C:\Documents and Settings\"UserName without quotes"\Local Settings\History"
RD /S /q "C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\Local Settings\History"
RD /S /q "C:\windows\Temp\

you will create it as batch file.

thank you in advance