Have you ever imagined, if you can add your favorite program or application in Windows 7 right click context menu, how easy it will be to start the program.
In this tutorial, we will guide you how to add any program of your choice in Windows 7 context menu with proper Icon.
Click Start button, type œregedit (without the quotation marks) and press Enter from keyboard. Accept the security prompt to run Windows registry editor:
Windows registry editor will open. Go to :
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\
Right click on the Shell key, and select New > then click Key ; name it as you need. We will show how to add Opera browser in right click context menu. So, we have created a Key named “Opera” :
Click on Key you have created (in our example it is Opera) and the in the right sided pane right click in an empty place and click “New” and then “expandable string value“. Name the new value ‘Icon‘ :
Right Click on “Icon” and click “modify” and in the edit string dialog enter the path of the icon file (the file must have .ico extension, you will find the icon file in the program folder of that program, else download or convert as you wish. We have downloaded the icon and created a folder in C drive) :
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Now, create a key under “Opera” and name it as “command” ; edit its default value in right sided pane by double clicking it and set the value as the exact full path of the program. In our example, it is:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Opera \Opera.exe
Right click on the desktop, a full functioning Opera icon will be there:
Obviously, you will want it to place as you like (higher or lower in the context menu); for that, create a string value named “Position” ; edit the value as “Top” or “Bottom” under “Opera” Key ; we have set to “Top” in our example:
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I thoroughly enjoyed this post – found it most helpful. I too am a physician (in canada), and I have become fairly computer literate now. Although I had formal training in c+, pascal/fortran/etc., most of my current knowledge is self-taught. So I always enjoy reading and learning. I particularly enjoyed this article. (I really enjoy reading/learning about any customizations which include registry edits (such as this) and I appreciate any useful gui scripts (.bat files) which will fix minor issues and perform repetitive tasks, or provide further customization.
I am using windows 7 home premium on both of my computers – I considered upgrading to win7 ultimate but I am not sure it would be worth bothering, if I am able to find an answer to one of the questions I’ve posted below (I’ve currently solved the remote desktop connection issue/roadblock – by using a special patch so I’m looking for a similar solution to the loss of the gpedit.Msc function. It is doubtless inbuilt but deactivated so I hope to find a way to activate this function.)
Anyway, there are a couple of things to which I am currently trying to find answers, so I stumbled across this article and found it quite useful. Incidentally, if you have a solution to any of the two problems I’ve mentioned below, dr. Ghosh, I would be more than pleased to read about it on your site (or if you could find the time to email it to me, that would be much appreciated).
1. I would like to find a patch, or some similar program, which would allow me to use the gpedit.Msc functionality in windows 7 – it is currently deactivated, and entering gpedit.Msc results in no system response. I’ve used a patch to activate the RDC, as mentioned above, and hope to find something similar to solve this issue.)
2. I would also like to be able to remotely access my home computer and my home router (configuration) remotely via the web (using windows inbuilt remote desktop connection). I’ve activated the remote desktop connection and i can use it within my home network. Since then I’ve: opened tcp port 80 (and 3389) in windows firewall (incoming/outgoing), downloaded /installed microsoft’s tsweb package, modified administrative tools (ensured default web site binding is port 80 – if I change it for security I will modify the firewall too, but haven’t done this yet), turns windows features on/off (installed certain features – under web management – checked and installed iis management console, under world wide web – checked and installed ‘common http features’) . Now, I apparently need to do a couple of things: assign a stable ip address to my computer (but I’m worried this will remove ipv6 compatibility, which is required for home networking and remote desktop connection), assign a url (dns) to the home computer, remotely access my router (smc gateway router) to port forward tcp port 3389 to the ip address of the home computer I wish to reach). **the latter step is a problem. I don’t know how to remotely access and configure the router and no one can tell me. I presume I will need the public ip address for it – ? How to find this, and some other info. (I suppose I could set up port forwarding on the router before leaving my home but i shouldn’t have to – and I need to change the port to whichever of the 2 home computers i want to view. Anyway, I’m having a lot of trouble getting this up and running. Would appreciate any help!
Thanks,
Dr. Alidina
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Welcome Dr. Alidina, my professional brother and thank you very much for the appreciations :)
It is really a joy from my heart to find another similar species like me (Harrison + Pascal combination) , something like a dinosaur in 2011 found another dinosaur. But you are pharmacologically of broader spectrum than me (From Fortran to Home server) about computer. I saw another Physician many months ago who has a Women health website and a full fledged SEO website, he is from UK; unfortunately I lost the urls. Tried to find it in Google, but could not. Let us discuss your referred cases first :)
1. Do not upgrade to Ultimate now, it might be a wastage of money as Windows 8 is knocking the door. Plus the upgraded version often creates some problems of activations if you change hardwares later. In case of Retail Ultimate from the beginning, you will just need to call them and reactivate by using those codes they will say over the phone, but I saw people complaining in forums about getting deactivated after changing the Hard disk or Optical drive and it become complex to make it reactivated back.
2. OK I will try that gpedit.msc, I promise :) Your logic is right.
3. You can use port forwarding using third party solution : no-ip or dyndns might help you. What I do, I have an offiline installation of WordPress on my Harddisk using xampp ; now the WordPress blog easily can be asessed via http://myip/Wordpress this url from any computer if xampp is running and the computer is connected to Internet. I have installed plugins to make some parts of it accessible only to members (and I am a member with a password obviously); I make posts about things I need to access there. Later if I need to access just go to the url from the other computer (physically 50 Miles away) and download them. More nice thing can be made if the Apache server is configured to give access to FTP (actually your hard disk). Windows itself is very prone to virus, malwares, this layers keep hackers away to access my hard disk. They only can go up to the Xammp folder, Apache will restrict to enter further. Still this is risky as it is Windows and at anytime any program might hang if run for long time (say 7 days) and I have to cry.
You can request your Internet service provider for a fixed IP too.
You worked too hard, make it simple:
1) If you need to access remote desktop fully functional use TeamViewer.
2) If you need to use the hard disk of your one computer purely as an server, install Linux Mint or Ubuntu, then configure it as a server using Xampp or purely as as a server. No Windows, no virus, no risk, all free :)
3) If you have a big plan consider Mac Server. They will restart itself (without need of human interference) and run everything again right back if something goes wrong.
4) Do not keep anything personal or important on that server computer, even on different partition.
Keep the connection on :)
-Regards
Dr. Abhishek