How to Add New Program Shortcuts in My Computer Context Menu in Windows?

We here at AskVG regularly post Registry tweaks to customize Desktop and My Computer context menus (right-click menus). We have told you in past how to add new program shortcuts in Desktop context menu. We have also told you how to add cascading menus of programs in Desktop context menu. You can visit following exclusive article containing links to all these useful tutorials:

Ultimate Tutorial to Customize Desktop Context Menu in Windows

Apart from Desktop context menu, we have also posted several Registry tweaks to add useful shortcuts in My Computer context menu. All of them can be read in following exclusive article:

Ultimate Tutorial to Customize My Computer Context Menu in Windows

Today we just realized that we have not posted any dedicated tutorial to tell you the Registry method which we always use to add these new useful shortcuts in My Computer context menu.

So today in this tutorial, we’ll tell you how to add your desired program shortcut in My Computer context menu (right-click menu) so that you can directly launch that program by just right-clicking on My Computer icon on Desktop and select the shortcut as shown in following screenshot:

This trick will work in all Windows versions including Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and later.

So without wasting time, lets start the tutorial:

1. Type regedit in RUN or Start Menu search box and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

3. Under “shell” key, create a new key and give it the name which you want to show for the shortcut in context menu. For example, if you want to add a shortcut for Task Manager, give it name Task Manager.

Alternatively, you can give any name to the key. To set the shortcut name, change the value of “(Default)” in right-side pane to the desired text.

PS: If you receive error message while creating new key, take ownership of the “Shell” key with the help of following tutorial:

[Guide] How to Take Ownership (Permission) of a Registry Key in Windows?

4. Now we’ll need to create a new key “command” under the key which we created in last step. For example, we created “Task Manager” key in step 3, now create a new key under “Task Manager” key and set its name to command

5. Now select command key and in right-side pane, change value of “(Default)” to the full path of your desired program. For example, if you want to add a new shortcut for Internet Explorer web browser, set value of “(Default)” to C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe

If you want to add new shortcut for system tools such as Task Manager, Registry Editor, Windows Explorer, etc, you can just type their executable file names such as taskmgr.exe, regedit.exe, explorer.exe, etc. No need to type the path as well.

6. That’s it. Now you can enjoy the new desired shortcut in My Computer context menu.

Bonus Tips for Windows 7 and later OS:

Windows 7 and later OS users can also set an icon and position of the shortcut in context menu using following steps:

1. To set an icon for the shortcut, select the key created in Step 3 and in right-side pane, create a new String value “Icon“. Set its value to your desired icon or simply put the path of program’s EXE file and it’ll automatically show its default icon.

2. To set position of the shortcut in context menu, create a new String value “Position” and set its value to:

That’s it. Now you’ll also see an icon near your desired shortcut and the shortcut will be shown at new position.

PS: You might have noticed that we have added a shortcut “Open AskVG.com” in My Computer context menu which opens AskVG.com website in web browser. You can also add any favorite website link in My Computer context menu using above mentioned steps. Just set the command value as mentioned in following tutorial:

Add Website Links in Desktop Context Menu in Windows

You can also watch following video to see the method live in action:

That’s all for now. If you have any problem or want to ask any question, feel free to ask it in your comment…