The VideoLAN Forums

Hi!
I'd like to remove the context menu (play with VLC, add to VLC playlist and so on); I couldn't find any option in the option menu
I tried to uninstall and reintall it, uncheking the option, but no success

I searched, and I tried with regedit, in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers, but there are no keys about VLC

So, how can I remove the menu?

Thanks in advance!

To Remove Folder & Directory Context Menu Items:

Open Regedit. Find HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell.

Under this key find each VLC key you would like to remove from folder context menus.

Rightclick each and choose export (just in case). Save the exported reg file with the name of the key plus "-dir".

To get only the key name and not the full registry path, first choose rename then instead of renaming when the name is highlighted rightclick and choose copy (before you export). Copy Key Name gives the full path instead of only the selected key.

After exporting the key delete it.

To Remove Filetype Associated Menu Items:

If VLC is the associated program for media types then find the registry entries that begin at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\VLC.asf.

For each file type look under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\VLC.xxx\shell for menu items you want to remove.

Back them up by exporting as described above (but when naming the reg file instead of adding "-dir" add the dash then the file extension), then delete each subkey named for the menu item you want deleted.

If VLC is not the associated program you will need to find the named filetype key by looking at the entry for the 3-letter extension then navigate to the key named the same as the default value found for the listing by extension.

An unrelated example: .bmp Default "Paint.Picture" Scroll down under HKCR to the Paint.Picture key and look under the shell subkey for unwanted context menu items. Back up and delete as described above. (For our purpose look under ".avi" etc.)

Windows Media Player context menu items are not removable. Sorry.

P.S. Mr. Wolf: Maybe your sigline should say "I ask other people to solve problems", on this posting.

To have to go through that rigmarole to remove an unwanted right-click context menu is ridiculous.

There should be an option in preferences.

The simplest way to fix your problem is to uninstall VLC to remove all context menus. Then re-install VLC being careful to watch the options while installing. Mr. Wolf may have unintentionally made a mistake on re-install.

Download my short tutorial with screenshots:
http://fileshost.com/download.php?id=4C9A4BD71

You have to enter a number in a box and click Submit to download it.

Registry editing is not the only way to get rid of VLC from context menus.

This way is far easier and simpler.

Oddly, the two right-click menu items show up when you right-click on a folder, not a music file or other individual file.

The link to "tutorial with screenshots" appears to be dead.

Good news: there are several different but closely related utilities on the NirSoft web site. Several of the utilities that are referenced in other posts and web articles don't work, but I found the one that does.

Go to

http://www.nirsoft.net/panel/

and look for

ShellMenuView (this will link to shmnview.exe)

This is the one that will remove the right-click shell extensions. Using the "Sort by Name" link on that page makes it a bit easier to find the right one. The icon looks something like a right-click menu. You don't have to install it, you just need the .exe and .cfg files together in a convenient folder.

You can sort by Menu Name" or by "Command", which will put all of the VLC extensions together. You can then highlight all of the "Play", or "Play with VLC media player" or "Add to VLC media player's Playlist" or all of them, depending on what you want to remove: then right click on the selection area and select "Disable Selected Items". lThis will take them out of the right click context menu. If you want to put one or more of them back, you can always go back in and re-enable one or all.

This is much easier and safer than using RegEdit, and it's easily reversable, and it's easy to enable or disable for specific file extensions.

I just tried this and it fixed the problem for me. Hope this helps.

This is much easier and safer than using RegEdit, and it's easily reversable, and it's easy to enable or disable for specific file extensions.

I just tried this and it fixed the problem for me. Hope this helps.

Thanks, I had a similar problem this afternoon after I installed VLC 3.0.1 64-bit, I wanted to remove the entries on the directory right-click. I downloaded the 64-bit shmnview from Nir Sofer's website and sorted by registry key then I found the entries with these keys:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\AddToPlaylistVLC
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\PlayWithVLC

And then I disabled those entries (the program works by adding a REG_SZ LegacyDisable with no contents to those keys). Now when I right-click a directory it doesn't show VLC player entries, but it still shows them for individual media files which is what I wanted. There are dozens of HKCR\VLC.* entries so if you want to disable them for individual files as well then I guess you'd have to disable all of those.

Just out of curiosity: you have context menu even if you deselect the option to have context menu during installation?

I didn't mention this, but I tried this on two 64 bit systems so far and it worked on both.

I think it's a useful program to have on hand because many other programs add extensions to the right click menu and this is a fast and easy way to fix any of them.

It certainly is possible to use regedit and delete the keys, I've done that in the past to remove other programs from the menu such as 7zip and MPC-HC (media player classic, which comes with the K-Lite codec pack) that don't give you a choice of whether to install context menu options during installation. Having used both solutions, I prefer the NirSoft method as being a lot faster and safer, especially for the VLC problem as there are registry keys for every file type extension that is associated with VLC.

To answer the other question, if you do a custom install and deselect the option for context menu it seems not to add all of the extensions (I've only run one quick test of this): but if you are upgrading an existing installation it's all too easy to miss doing that. If you help friends and relatives (or even clients) with their computers, they could easily miss this option during an installation or upgrade and this is a quick way to fix the problem without having to do a complete de-installation and re-installation which can lose all of the VLC settings.

Just out of curiosity: you have context menu even if you deselect the option to have context menu during installation?

Second that. I am pretty sure that the context menu shell integration option was present in setup eventhough you do NOT associate extensions VLC as default player in Windows.