The Copy To Folder and Move To Folder options found in the Edit menu in Windows Explorer help you move or copy a file or folder easily to a different location. This functionality can also be added to the right-click menu in Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista, similar to Send To X PowerToy for Windows 95.

Although the options work fine when added to the context menu in Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista, you’ll note a glaring side-effect in Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The problem is that when opening multiple files from Windows Explorer, you’ll see the Copy To or the Move To dialog continuously popping up unnecessarily. As Raymond Chen notes in his Blog:

The "Copy to Folder" and "Move to Folder" options weren’t designed to be on the context menu. They were only meant to be placed in Explorer’s toolbar.

So far as I tested, this problem does not occur in Windows Vista. So, here is how to add the Copy To and Move To options to the context menu.

Add Copy To and Move To options to the context menu

Note: To automate the following, follow the instructions under section Registry fix below.

Click Start, type Regedit.exe and press ENTER

From the Edit menu, create a new key named Copy To.

Select the following branch:

Double-click (default) and set its Value data to:

Similarly, create a new key named Move To, in this branch:

Select the following branch:

Double-click (default) and set its Value data to:

Exit the Registry Editor.

REGISTRY FIX

To automate the above setting, download copytomoveto.zip and save it to the Desktop. Unzip the file and extract the contents to a folder. Double-click the file copytomoveto.reg to run it. This adds Copy To and Move To entries to the context menu for all files and directories. To remove the options, use the undo.reg file enclosed in the Zip file.

To move a file or folder to a different location, right-click on the file or folder and choose Move To Folder… Select the target folder in the Move Items dialog box.

Copyright © 2008 Ramesh Srinivasan. All rights reserved.