Removing Media Player in right-click menu

May 4. 2005 19:41 60 comments Category: tips

Quick Tip: how to remove all the garbage that accumulates in the right-click context menu in Windows Explorer after you make an update/upgrade to Media Player.

Example: I upgrade my home server to Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1. It forces me to upgrade to Media Player 10. OK, sure, go ahead, whatever. But now when I right-click a media file I have to practically scroll through a long list of MP-specific fluff in order get what I want (usually Rename or Properties). Here's the fix:

Click Start, Run and type in regsvr32 /u wmpshell.dll

That's it! Unregister WMP Shell. It's so simple...

[UPDATE] For Vista, you'll need to run this command in elevated-mode.

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Comments

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Really simple. Thanks a lot. I was gonna go through my registry too.

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

THANK YOU!!!

$%^#@ Microsoft...

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Gracias.

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Beautiful, thank you very much.

Sam

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Or you could do the same with the built in "Set Program Access And Defaults" feature found on the start menu or by going Control Panel > Add Remove Programs > Set Program Access And Defaults.

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

great! I've long been looking for this. thanx!

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Love you dude!

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

You won't be able to uninstall Media Player - only remove references to it. It's a part of the OS just like Internet Explorer.

Bryan Peters

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

my media player won't uninstall

mark

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

My god, you are a life saver.I searched the registry for hours, making backups and deleteing stuff (i hope my win still works after reboot ). Thank u so much!

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

I'm on my knees

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

YUP, that's perfectly what i was looking for !

-DeN-

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Wow, thats amazing! I have been searching the register over and over again for that context menu (which cannot be found ofcoarse).

Why does Microsoft ignore power users so often, it's damn right annoying!

Jooch

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

really, thank you. I know it probably wasn't too hard to find, but it took me months of googling to find this answer. So easy. +1 to you.

Greg H

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Thanks man, saved me A LOT of time.

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Great! You made my late evening!

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Brilliant!

Brunon

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Thanks... this is very neat!

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

thanks a lot
looks nice and clean

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

made my day!

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Thank you very much for this tip.

Victr

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

^^ That's the point of removing WMP from the right-click menu. Media Player is automatically embedded on most Windows systems, and very difficult to remove. This is just a simple way of cleaning it up.

Bryan Peters

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Thanks so much. Wasted time wading through the registry.. I guess I could have just uninstalled bloody WMP but ah, this is much better.

Neryam

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Thanks SOOOOOO much! You are now my Idol

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Who even wants to use WMP, when there are better players for Windows, like Winamp for newbies and Foobar2000 for trve hardkore users.

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

You're a GOD among men. I will remember your words of wisdom!

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

thnx dude ;)

Dogge from sweden

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

totally made my day!

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Great tip! I've been trying to find this out. Thank you!

Wonder why Microsoft doesn't make this info a little more freely available, hmm?

Pete

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

F**king Brillant !!

Does anyone know though a program for adding / removing context menu items without having to scroll through regedit. I have Context Menu Editor which removes them simple enough but would love to find the same program that adds them just as easily.

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

cant thank you enough.

bill gates is going to hell!!

woohoo

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

You Rock!!! Thanks For That!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

thanks a lot i was about to waste a bunch of time in the registry till i found this...

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

thnx

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Master

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Drool.. I love you.

ASSMAN

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

thank you a thousand times, you made my day!

FUCK MICROSOFT

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Thanks a ton, you saved me from more than 2seconds of googling on this problem.

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

mhmmm... great!!!

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

You are the man!

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

You made my day, Thank's a bunch

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Oh my god that's awesome!

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

You're the business alright. V.nice

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Awesome. Thanks! I can live without WMP being default, it's just handy having it there.

Sean

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Thanks a lot. Looks much better now.

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

You are the best - almost given up in trying to find a solution. This needs to be more widely publiced on all the fix & tweek websites.

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

At first I thought this was perfect EXCEPT ....

it become impossible to have WMP as the default player any longer. Everytime you click on a media file windows will ask you to choose a program. You can no longer permenantly associate a media file with WMP. The only way to fix this was to reregister the DLL. Back to square one ..

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Nice man, I was about to go wading through the registry. Mad props to you.

Andrew

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

thx a lot...windows really made it tough to remove native program stuff, eh =)

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

your my f**king hero!!

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

i've been looking for that for quite a time now. thx a lot...

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

yeah, that's much better...many thanks

Anonymous

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

Thank you!

markus

10/6/2007 7:18:42 AM

You saved my day

Hjalte

10/17/2007 4:48:17 AM

Brilliant! Thank you so much.

Cheers~

Muzzy

1/23/2008 8:13:47 AM

Thanks a lot, it worked

kimlanbu

4/22/2008 11:06:14 AM

hey, it seems like it's not working with SP1... ?
Anyone else has problems using it with SP1 ???

motomart

4/22/2008 12:30:17 PM

For Vista, you'll need to run the command in elevated-mode.

Easiest way is hit the Windows button and type in "cmd" in the search. Right-click the icon and select Run as Administrator. Then right-click the command prompt and paste the command.

Bryan Peters

12/22/2008 9:06:59 PM