Johannes Passing's Blog

Although Windows Explorer may actually not be the brightest spot of Windows, it is still, for most users, among the most often used pograms. Customizing it to speed up certain tasks is thus a natural desire.

A while ago, I wrote about how to extend the context menu by new commands that allow MSI packages to be installed/uninstalled with logfiles being created. The registry entries I used were:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msi.Package\shell\LoggedInstall]
@="&Logged Install"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msi.Package\shell\LoggedInstall\command]
@="msiexec.exe /l* \"%1-install.log\" /i \"%1\" %*"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msi.Package\shell\LoggedUninstall]
@="L&ogged Uninstall"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msi.Package\shell\LoggedUninstall\command]
@="msiexec.exe /l* \"%1-uninstall.log\" /x \"%1\" %*"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msi.Package\shell\runas\command]
@="msiexec.exe /l* \"%1.log\" /i \"%1\" %*"

While I do not use Windows Installer every day, I am a heavy user of cmd.exe command prompts. Another set of custom verbs I use on my machines therefore deal with opening command line windows. Getting Windows Explorer to open a “normal” command prompt using the context menu is not hard and it has been demonstrated on various places. The idea becomes truly powerful, though, when the commands are specialized to open special kinds of command windows:

• A plain command prompt
• An elevated command prompt (using elevate.exe)
• A WDK command prompt (WLH-chk)
• A WDK command prompt (WLHA64-chk)
• A Visual Studio 2005 command prompt
• etc …

To distinguish the different types of consoles, I like to use different colors — The Visual Studio command prompt is white/green, the elevated prompt is green/blue, and so on. The following script puts it all together (mind the static paths):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Open DDK Console here (WLH-chk)]
@="Open DD&K Console here (WLH-chk)"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Open DDK Console here (WLH-chk)\command]
@="C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe /k C:\\WinDDK\\6000\\bin\\setenv.bat C:\\WinDDK\\6000\\ chk WLH && cd /D %1 && color 1f"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Open DDK Console here (WLHA64-chk)]
@="Open DD&K Console here (WLHA64-chk)"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Open DDK Console here (WLHA64-chk)\command]
@="C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe /k C:\\WinDDK\\6000\\bin\\setenv.bat C:\\WinDDK\\6000\\ chk AMD64 && cd /D %1 && color 1f"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Open Default Console here]
@="Open Default Conso&le here"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Open Default Console here\command]
@="cmd.exe /K \"title %1 && cd /D %1\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Open Elevated Console here]
@="Open Ele&vated Console here"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Open Elevated Console here\command]
@="d:\\bin\\elevate.exe /K \"title %1 && color 1a && cd /D %1\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Open VS.Net 2005 Console here]
@="Open VS.Net 200&5 Console here"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Open VS.Net 2005 Console here\command]
@="cmd.exe /K \"cd /D %1 && \"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\\VC\\vcvarsall.bat\" && color 2f\""

Finally, if you perform backups to the cloud from time to time and do want to upload unencrypted data or for other reasons encrypt specific files occasionaly, it may also be practical to have two GPG commands in your context menu — one to (symetrically) encrypt, and one to decrypt:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.gpg]
@="GpgFile"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\GpgFile]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\GpgFile\shell]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\GpgFile\shell\Decrypt]
@="Decrypt"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\GpgFile\shell\Decrypt\command]
@="\"c:\\Program Files (x86)\\GNU\\GnuPG\\gpg.exe\" -d -i -o %1.plain %1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\GpgSymmetricEncrypt]
@="Encrypt with GPG (symmetric)"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\GpgSymmetricEncrypt\command]
@="\"c:\\Program Files (x86)\\GNU\\GnuPG\\gpg.exe\" -c %1"