Clean Up the Right-Click Menu in Internet Explorer 8

The right-click menu in Internet Explorer may get cluttered up when you install download managers, Toolbars and other browser companion utilities. The items that you use seldom (or never) can be removed so that the right-click menu in Internet Explorer looks clean.

The context menu in Internet Explorer includes the following type of Add-ons:

Accelerators (Internet Explorer 8 only)
Menu extensions (All versions of Internet Explorer)

Accelerators

Accelerators let you act on data in a Web page. For example, you can select a few lines of text and send it to a blog or email it with a click. Internet Explorer 8 (currently in Beta 2) comes with the following Accelerators out of the box:

Blog with Windows Live Spaces
Email with Live Mail
Map with Live Maps
Translate with Windows Live
Define with Encarta

Note that "Accelerators" is a new feature introduced in Internet Explorer 8.

To disable unused Accelerators, use these steps:

1. Open Internet Explorer

2. Click Tools, select Manage Add-ons.

3. Select Accelerators

4. Right-click the appropriate entry and click Disable

5. Click Close.

Menu Extensions

Menu extensions are supported in all versions of Internet Explorer, and information in this section applies to all versions of Internet Explorer. Menu extensions are stored in the registry, and each extension is linked to a HTML/Script file that actually powers the menu item.

Examples

"Export to Microsoft Excel" extension exports Web page selection to a Excel Spreadsheet
"Download using FlashGet" downloads the hyperlinked file using FlashGet

The Menu extensions are loaded from the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Internet Explorer \ MenuExt

Each Menu extension has a subkey underneath the MenuExt branch. The (default) value in the right pane denotes the HTML/Script file used by the extension.

To remove a Menu extension, run Regedit.exe to start the Registry Editor. Navigate to the above location. Backup the branch first. Right-click on the corresponding subkey and choose Delete. Exit the Registry Editor.

If you don’t want to mess with the registry, you can automate the task using the free ToolbarCop utility. ToolbarCop is a browser extensions manager which can enable, disable or remove Internet Explorer Add-ons. It creates a backup (.REG file) every time you delete an Add-on.

Note: If you’re using Windows Vista, you need to run ToolbarCop under elevated (Right-click and choose Run as Administrator) privileges.

(Right-click menu, after cleanup)

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