Sometimes Windows Vista and 7 users face a strange problem. Whenever they right-click on an item or in free space, they get the old classic context menu instead of the new WPF enabled context menu as shown in following screenshot:

This problem occurs because of Norton products. Actually Norton installs its own entry in context menu which breaks whole context menu and Windows starts showing the classic context menu. As you can see in the above screenshot, there is an entry for "Norton AntiVirus".
To solve this problem, you just need to either disable Norton context menu entry from its Settings or uninstall Norton completely. It'll fix the problem and you'll get the new WPF enabled context menu back:

Also read:
[FIX] WinRAR Causes Wide Context Menu Bug in Windows Vista, Server 2008 and 7
This article was posted by VG in following section: Troubleshooting, Windows 7, Windows Vista.
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VG
^^ Then there must be some other 3rd party software which is causing the same issue. Please check which software entries are shown in context menu.
Ash
thanks for replying..
i checked enteries int he registry under contextmenuhandler, i dont see any 3rd party software entries there..
oh yeah it only shows classic style menu when I right click any folder or if I right click on computer - under start menu.
and for files it shows wpf enabled menu..
Is this normal in windows 7? not sure.. I checked under vista. it was showing wpf enabled menus for every object.
VG
^^ Can you post a screenshot of context menu?
Ash
hi VG
I checked again every enteries i had in the context menu and disabled it one by one using shellexview software(its a great tool ^^).
I found that my antivirus was giving me problem. It was in the registry but it wasnt showing in the right click menu. I disabled it , restarted my computer and voila it worked :)
I uninstalled my antivirus and installed Microsoft Security Essentials now. im happy now :)
Thanks for helping :)
Elia
this really helps
Shellexecutor
This also occurs with Notepad++ and Cisco Network Magic