Adding Context Menus to Windows Explorer

[Foolish Tech]

I have a project that adds a lot of context menus to Windows Explorer for certain items. Currently, when the project loads I add something like:

HKCR\<myfiletype>\shell\<myextension>\command

to the registry for a number of items, and I remove the entries when the project unloads. It works quite well!

The problem is that the extensions I add have grown in numbers and I would like to add them all to a SUB menu, which isn't possible by the methods I am using. As I have read, I need to create a shell extension / context menu handler to create my own custom sub menu. Various sources have led me to believe this isn't do-able in VB6...

Then I stumbled upon SHLEXT.tlb by Eduardo Morcillo on vbaccellerator, but I cannot find any code samples for actually using it. On his own mvps site I couldn't even find the tlb itself, but found a sample ctxmenu.dll, but no samples on using that.

I found a different sample in VB5 on microsoft.com somewhere but it looks a little complex to a beginner like myself, and the caveat is that Windows would need to be restarted for the changes to be noticeable. That isn't an option for me. Probably that is just MS speak for killing the Explorer.exe process and restarting it, which I could easily automate, but that isn't an attractive option to do every time my program is executed.

I figure the gurus here probably already have written or provided a sample using the SHLEXT.tlb or similar. Can someone point me to a code sample that utilizes one of these methods to add one simple context menu to explorer, preferably a submenu

[Chris001]

Take a look at the thread below. Post #24 contains a demo project.

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...hreadid=183880

[Foolish Tech]

Great, thanks!

[fafalone]

I have a related question, so I'll ask here instead of a new thread.

The registry entry shows how to add it for .exe files; but how can it be changed to add the menu to all files?

Oh and regarding Morcillo's context menu example, you are talking about adding a right click option in Windows Explorer right? I have the code sample on that and it only uses olelib.tlb. Attaching the example.

[Foolish Tech]

Works fine on XP......

But on Win7, I import the reg file, register the DLL, etc. No joy though. Even tried restarting explorer, no love.

Any ideas?

[Foolish Tech]

I have a related question, so I'll ask here instead of a new thread.

The registry entry shows how to add it for .exe files; but how can it be changed to add the menu to all files?

Oh and regarding Morcillo's context menu example, you are talking about adding a right click option in Windows Explorer right? I have the code sample on that and it only uses olelib.tlb. Attaching the example.

In the .reg file change "exefile" to "AllFileSystemObjects"

[Foolish Tech]

Well as it turns out, it you cannot register a 32bit context menu handler on a 64bit system which is what my OS is - after some research it looks like there is NO WAY to get a VB6 context menu handler to work on a 64bit version of Windows... DRAT!

I have yet to test the context menu handler DLL on a 32bit Win7 to see if that at least will work...

But at least I did find ways to add submenus in Windows 7 (unsure if it will work on Vista but likely so) even though it won't work on XP... http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...(v=vs.85).aspx

So I guess my solution is to use the context menu handler with my app for Windows XP, or all 32 bit systems perhaps, and then use the registry method I found above for use on Vista/7 x64.... Sigh more coding required.