OS

Technology Thursday OS Poll

What is your preferred operating system?
If you have more than one, pick the one you use most often (in ANY capacity)

  • Mobile Only (any) (50%, 5,828 Votes)
  • Microsoft (Windows) (30%, 3,497 Votes)
  • Apple (macOS) (15%, 1,749 Votes)
  • Cloud (ChromeOS, 10 Cloud) (3%, 305 Votes)
  • Linux/Unix (any distro) (2%, 264 Votes)
  • something else ... (please drop me a line and share) (0%, 10 Votes)
  • what the hell is an operating system? (0%, 3 Votes)

Total Voters: 11,656

Loading ... Loading ...

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.