Yet another context menu saga. After installing Notepad++ (a free Notepad alternative, version 5.5.1 as of this writing) in a Windows 7 computer, the context menu turned ugly with a classic look.

After removing "Edit with Notepad++" from the right-click menu, by deleting the following registry branch:

It now renders correctly.

This is only a cosmetic issue, and has been already reported by an user in Notepad++ forums.

Adding Notepad++ as a Static Menu

After deleting the context menu handler from the registry, I added Notepad++ as a static menu in this key:

And added an icon to the context menu entry, as well.

Registry Fix

To automate the above, download npp-menu.zip. Unzip and run the attached REG file.

Additional Information

Earlier, it was noted that that a Norton Antivirus definition update caused this problem. You can read more about that in AskVG’s article Fix Old Classic Context Menu Problem, and to obtain the Hotfix from Symantec, visit Context menu options do not appear properly after you install updates for Norton 2009.

What if you experience this problem, but don’t have any of these applications?

If the problem occurred after installing or updating a particular product, notify the product support team so that they may fix the problem in next update. Until they fix the problem, you can remove or disable the corresponding context menu handler shell extension for the product, that is, only if you can’t really stand the ugly / classic look in context menu. Nirsoft’s ShellExView does this job neatly. If you need a detailed guide, check out Method 2 in article Right-click weirdness caused by context menu handlers.