The conceptual menu is the one that appears when you right-click anywhere with the mouse: whether it’s on a file or folder or simply on an empty space on the desktop, it’s very useful because it provides us with a large number of options and shortcuts. However, with the arrival of Windows 11, Microsoft thought it was a good idea to change this conceptual menu, causing users who were already used to using previous versions of the operating system for years to have to take previous steps to be able to use the classic menu.
New or classic menu on right click, you choose
Let’s take as an example the conceptual menu that appears in Windows 11 when we right-click on an empty space on the desktop. In this menu we have many options that allow us to organize the icons on the desktop, create new documents, or access the screen settings, for example.
As you can see in the screenshot that we have put above these lines, at the bottom we have the “Show more options” option, which will precisely show us the classic menu that we had in previous versions of Windows. Alternatively, if you right-click on the desktop and hold down the SHIFT key on your keyboard, it will directly open the classic menu.
Be that as it may, the fact is that if we want to access the “usual” menu, we will have to perform an additional step (or click on the Show more options option, or hold down SHIFT on the keyboard before right-clicking). And that is certainly not to everyone’s taste.
This classic menu gives you exactly the same options as the one that now comes by default in Windows 11, but it gives us some additional options such as direct access to the NVIDIA Control Panel if your graphics card is from this brand, or in our case as You can also see an access to the software of our Dell monitor. The rest of the options are still present, so it doesn’t make much sense to use the new Windows 11 menu, right?
Don’t worry, because it’s possible to always get the classic menu, and we’ll tell you how below.
How to return to the classic Windows menu
To return to the classic menu that appears when you right click, we must enter the Registry Editor Windows; To do this, press WIN + R (Run), type “regedit” (without the quotes) and press ENTER, or simply click on the Start button and type “regedit” (again, without the quotes) to open it. Once Registry Editor opens, you need to navigate this registry key:
ComputerHKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareClassesCLSID
To get to it you can either navigate through the menu on the left until you reach it, or you can copy and paste the key at the top, just below the menu.
Now comes a part that is a little more cumbersome, but there is no loss if you copy and paste the information that we are going to put below. You must right-click on CLSID and select New -> Key. A “folder” will appear hanging from CLSID waiting for you to give it a name, so you must put exactly this:
{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}
After creating this key, you have to do the same process again (click on it with the right mouse button and click New -> Key) to create another key with this name (be careful with the case).
InprocServer32
If you’ve done everything right, you should see something like this:
There is only one more step left. On the right side you see that there is a key called (Default). You must double click on it and, in the window that opens, leave the value blank and click OK.
If you’ve done it right, on the right hand side where “(value not set)” used to appear, it should now appear blank. Once this is done, you will only have to restart the PC and you will be able to verify that every time you right-click on a file or on the desktop, the classic menu that we had until now appears.
