Empty the Recycle Bin Without the Confirmation Window Showing Up

When emptying the contents of your Recycle Bin, you’ll be asked for confirmation as below. Here is a registry edit to turn off the prompt in Windows 7, 8 and Windows 10, using NirCmd. This registry edit replaces the Empty Recycle Bin command in the right-click menu and the ribbon button action with NirCmd, so that the Recycle Bin can be emptied silently.Read more

How to Add Icon to a Context Menu Item in Windows

When working with Windows 7 RC this week, I stumbled upon another nice and useful feature that I thought I should write about. In Windows 7 and higher, you can add icons to your custom right-click (static) menu entries.

Usually, to display a right-click command with an icon, one needs to write a context menu handler Shell Extension (DLL). Now, you can assign icons for static menu items as well, without having to program anything.

The instructions in this article apply to Windows 7 through Windows 10.

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How to Make Folders Appear as Cascading Menu in the Quick Launch Toolbar

When you create sub-folders in the Quick Launch folder to better organize the shortcuts, the folders will appear in the Quick Launch toolbar correctly, but clicking them would launch Windows Explorer.

Some people would like to view the contents of the folder (cascaded as a list) rather than opening the folder when clicked. Here is how to make folders in the Quick Launch toolbar cascade as menu when clicked.Read more

How to Change the Icon for a File Type in Windows

change file type icon - icon picker dialog

Surprisingly, Windows doesn’t have a built-in option to allow users to set custom icons for file types. If you have a custom file type and the corresponding program doesn’t have a nice-looking icon in its .exe or .dll resource, you can manually change or customize the default icon for that file type.

This article explains how to change the default icon for a file type using different methods in Windows. Instructions apply to all versions of Windows, including Windows 10Read more