Cleaning out the right-click registry

[HighCommander4]

Every time I right-click a file in Windows Explorer, a long list of actions comes up, with options relating to WinZip, WinRAR, MagicISO, PowerISO, CopyToDVD and so many other programs. A few (like WinZip's "Extract Here...") are actually useful but most of them I don't use at all. What annoys me is that all these things result in right-clicking on a file to take VERY LONG before the menu shows up.

Evidently, there is a list of things somewhere (possibly in the registry) that come up whenever you right-click on something, and many programs that I have installed have added themselves and their various functionality into that list. I do not want to uninstall the programs themselves because I use them, I just don't want their functionality to be accessed from right-clicking.

So how do I find and clean out this list of things that come up when you right-click?

My OS is Windows XP SP2.

[PeejAvery]

It is found in the registry. A simply Google search would have returned many results for you. The registry key you need...

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

[HighCommander4]

The key in question is empty. The only thing it contains is a "Send To" subkey which has a single entry "(Default)" with some binary data.

[PeejAvery]

That's not good. Well, you can try a couple of things.

1. Search the registry for the exact wording of what shows up in the context (right-click) menu. Keep in mind the & in front of the underlined letters if there are any.

2. Uninstall and reinstall the software without those options enabled. Most softwares will ask you if you want the context menu.

[HighCommander4]

I figured it out. Most of the stuff was in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers although some specifically installed themselves in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.exe\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers and other specific extensions.

I have one other question, though. Let's say WinRAR provides 4 options in the right-click menu: "Add to archive...", "Add to to filename.rar", "Compress and email..." and "Compress to filename.rar and email". Say I only want the first two and I want to get rid of the second two, how do I do that?

EDIT: Also, deleting the things from HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers does not help - the menu items are still there when I right-click a folder.

[PeejAvery]

Some registry editing only changes on reboot!