Adding an item to the system context menu

Question

How do you add an item to the system context menu? I would like to let my users be able to right click anywhere and launch this program. I cannot seem to find it documented anywhere either.

Thanks for your help!

I am coding in vb.net

Answer 1

What you're looking for is creating a Shell Extension Handler for Windows Explorer.

• Reference: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb776881(VS.85).aspx

Unfortunately doing this in a .Net application is a bit of a problem due to the way in which the CLR is loaded for COM plug-in style extensions. Raymond did a great job of exploring this problem here

• http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/12/18/1317290.aspx