Windows Explorer – Add Context Menu Option to Start Command Prompt

command linecontext menuwindows 7windows-explorer

When browsing in Windows Explorer, sometimes I want to start a command prompt "here", e.g. with the current browsed folder as the current directory.

For example, when I am browsing "D:\Foo\Bar\Bar1", I want to open the command prompt with current dir pointing to this directory. Normally what I do is

  1. Copy the current folder path from Windows explorer's address bar
  2. Open cmd via Start Menu > Run
  3. Type D: (because I have to change drive, the default is C:)
  4. Type "cd " and then paste the folder path
    that I copied earlier

I do it quite often in my daily work, and I think by adding a context menu I will improve my efficiency (and also having to do the above repeatedly can be kind of annoying). I imagine I can just Right-Click > Start cmd here and then I will have a command prompt already in D:\Foo\Bar\Bar1

Is this possible?

Best Answer

  1. Start / Run / regedit

  2. Navigate to the following keys in turn:

    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\cmd
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\cmd
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\cmd

  3. Under each in the right pane you'll see a REG_SZ string value called Extended. Just rename this to something else (in case you want to easily undo the change) or delete it (just that value):

    1

  4. Now you can simply right-click a drive or directory and have the Command Prompt option show up without having to press Shift.

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