After over six years of Windows 10, PC users are now getting a major Windows update with Windows 11. The latest iteration of Windows has got some of the biggest visual refreshments, with a centered Start Menu and taskbar, rounded corners, and more. As part of the UI overhaul, Microsoft also shipped a modernized right-click context menu that’s more condensed than Windows 10’s.

Many seem to have liked the new minimalistic approach, especially when you can still have the option to get your hands on the old-school expanded menu by clicking on the Show more options button at the bottom or using the Shift+F10 keyboard shortcut. Others, however, find this design super annoying, as they have to perform one additional mouse click every time they need access to additional options.

If you’re in the same boat as the latter group of people and are looking to restore the old right-click context menu on Windows 11, then this tutorial is for you. Keep in mind that Microsoft doesn’t offer an official method to disable the modern right-click context menu, but there exists a native method that can give you full context menus in Windows 11 without using any third-party software.

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One can create a manual override through Windows Registry in order to force Explorer to fall back to the classic full menu. There is no need to modify any system file, which means the method should work even after installing Windows 11’s cumulative updates.

The Command-line way

1. Open Windows Terminal with Windows PowerShell or Command Prompt. You don’t need to start it as administrator, since the override will be set per-user basis.
2. Copy and paste the following command into Windows Terminal, then press Enter:

   reg add "HKCUSoftwareClassesCLSID86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2InprocServer32" /f /ve

   If everything goes right, it should say “The operation completed successfully.”

   

3. Close Windows Terminal.
4. Restart the explorer process, or sign out and sign in, or restart the PC to make the override key take effect.

The Graphical way

1. Start Registry Editor. You can execute the regedit command in the Run prompt to open the application.
   
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWARECLASSESCLSID and create a new registry key called 86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2.
3. Create another key called InprocServer32 under 86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2.
4. Locate the (Default) key in InprocServer32, set its value to blank, then click OK.
   
5. Close Registry Editor.
6. Restart the explorer process, or sign out and sign in, or restart the PC to make the override key take effect.

In case you want to revert back to the original design, delete the 86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2 key (which includes the InprocServer32 subkey) from Registry Editor. You can also execute the following one-liner on Windows Terminal to achieve the same result:

reg delete "HKCUSoftwareClassesCLSID86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2" /f

Make sure to reboot or simply log out and re-login after deleting the override key.

We hope you were able to open the full right-click menu by default using the methods above on Windows 11. If you face any issues or have any more questions, feel free to drop them in the comments section below.