Microsoft

Happy Birthday Micro$oft

I am sure I am not the only one who has had an ever evolving relationship with Microsoft – some good, many bad, but more recently ending up closer to better than worse, so that’s something. I don’t think anyone, including myself, gives them full amount of credit they deserve for all they have accomplished. They have driven innovation, whether they meant to or not – say IE leading to alternative browsers. Regardless, they have been a staple of our lives, so here to them and 41 years – raise the metaphorical glass for a toast.
Microsoft Logo Timeline

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, that develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer web browser. Its flagship hardware products are Xbox game console and the Microsoft Surface series of tablets. It is the world’s largest software maker measured by revenues. It is also one of the world’s most valuable companies.

Create Native Copy/Move Operation Context Menus in Windows

The concept of right-clicking on a file/folder or a bunch of them and copying or moving them to another location is nothing new. We do it constantly and often without realizing it. However the concept of Copy to X or Move to X where x is any location you choose without having to open the source folder and destination folders and select and then drag and drop the items has resulted in countless programmatic solutions being cooked up.

In fact when Windows 95 was released, there was a suite of utilities referred to as Microsoft PowerToys which included Send To X, a shell extensions which added several commonly accessed locations such as clipboard, desktop, command-line or any folder to the Send To context menu in Explorer. These powertoys have long gone into unsupported and no longer developed phase, although if you get them, they should technically still work.

However, as a minimalist, I have always striven towards the simplest and cleanest solution, preferably native so that its efficient, fast, clean and most stable. As such, I am going to share with you a simple registry tweak that will accomplish just that without any fuss and is instantly available without installing any additional software.

For Advanced Users
  1. Run RegEdit
  2. Go to :
    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
  3. Create a Key : Move To …
  4. Double Click (Default) and enter :
    {C2FBB631-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}
  5. Create a Key : Copy To …
  6. Double Click (Default) and enter :
    {C2FBB630-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}
  7. That’s it, you are done. Enjoy!
For Everyone
  1. Open Notepad
  2. Copy and Paste the code below
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Move To ...]
@="{C2FBB631-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Copy To ...]
@="{C2FBB630-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}"
  1. Save as <somename>.reg
  2. Double Click the file you just created
  3. Accept to merge it into the registry
  4. That’s it, you are done. Enjoy!
All that being said, you can simply download this file and run it as well.