Add Right-Click Menu to Open Any Folder on Windows

The context menu you gain by right-clicking the desktop is a powerful tool to open any kind of data and program. If you have a folder that you need to access regularly it might be a clever idea to simply pin it to that right-click menu to shorten the access time.

To achieve that you need to add a few keys to the registry. Open it by typing regedit into a run prompt which you get by hitting Windows key + R. In the registry, navigate to the Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\background\shell key and right-click it to create a new key (New > Key). Give it the name of the command that shall later appear in the menu (Custom Folder in the example above). Afterward right-click the created key and create another one called command. Left-click the command key and change the (Default) value by double-clicking it. It has to be something like

explorer.exe C:\Users\howtoforge\Pictures

Replace the path I used with the one to your folder (embrace it in double quotes if it contains spaces) and put the explorer.exe in front of it, so the system knows which program to use to open the command.

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