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

In this tutorial, we’ll tell you how to add a shortcut of your favorite program, (like Windows Media Player, Firefox, opera, winamp, etc) in Desktop context menu (which is also applied to explorer context menu):

1. Copy your favorite application’s EXE file from its own folder (like winamp.exe, firefox.exe, etc) to following folder:

2. Now take a backup of helpctr.exe file in that folder and then delete the file. Now give the same name to your copied EXE file. (i.e., first delete helpctr.exe file and then rename your copied EXE file (like winamp.exe) to helpctr.exe ).

3. Now the final part. Open Shell32.dll file in Resource Hacker and go to: Menu -> 215. In right-side pane, add following line to anywhere you want to add the shortcut (like you can add this line just below the “Refresh” menu, as we have done in screenshot):

You can replace “Media Player” to some other text if you want.

4. Now compile the file and save it, and finally replace Shell32.dll file with this modified one.

After restarting the system, you can see a new shortcut in the context menu for your desired application .

NOTE 1: The above method might cause Help Center to not work properly, because we have replaced the helpctr.exe file with some other EXE file, so apply this method if you don’t want to use help center.

NOTE 2: 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 or use Replacer to replace the file.

NOTE 3: If you get “Cannot create file” error message while saving the file, please check following tutorial:

How to Fix “Cannot Create File” Error Message While Saving Files in Resource Hacker?