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Topic: Windows Explorer context menu (Read 2908 times) previous topic - next topic
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Windows Explorer context menu

On my XP computers in Explorer the right-click context menu for a folder will show "Enqueue in Foobar2000" and "Play in Foobar2000" entries if there are audio files in that folder. On all my Windows 7 and later computers, these entries are not present. If I want to play the contents of that folder, I must enter the folder and select the audio files manually, at which point I DO get a "Play in Foobar2000" option (but not "Enqueue"). Why is that? Can I change the behavior of my Win7 and later computers to be like that of XP?

Re: Windows Explorer context menu

Reply #1
File - Preferences - Display - Context Menu will give you the choices for what shows up in the context menu, but I'm not sure how to make it work for whole folders as opposed to just files. It would be good if you could apply context menus for whole folders too (on Win 10 here).

[EDIT] Scratch that, that setting's for the INTERNAL context menus, sorry to waste your time. The settings for the Explorer context menu are: File - Preferences - Shell Integration (click "Folder Context Menus").

Re: Windows Explorer context menu

Reply #2
What I'd like to figure out is to how to get Windows to permanently stop trying to be helpful and taking folders with music in them and displaying them differently than general use folders. I know how to do this on a folder-by-folder basis, including child folders, but I've never figured out how to turn it off completely so that it stops trying to customize folders in the first place.

One side effect of this behavior is that on these folders, Windows overrides the foobar context entries with WMP.

Re: Windows Explorer context menu

Reply #3
On my XP computers in Explorer the right-click context menu for a folder will show "Enqueue in Foobar2000" and "Play in Foobar2000" entries if there are audio files in that folder. On all my Windows 7 and later computers, these entries are not present. If I want to play the contents of that folder, I must enter the folder and select the audio files manually, at which point I DO get a "Play in Foobar2000" option (but not "Enqueue"). Why is that? Can I change the behavior of my Win7 and later computers to be like that of XP?

@likescookies, try to completely disable Windows media player and Windows media center through Uninstall or change programs->Turn windows features on or off->Media features
It solved problem for me (and not only for me - https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,114165.0.html).

Re: Windows Explorer context menu

Reply #4
Awesome, thanks. I'll look into this!

Re: Windows Explorer context menu

Reply #5
Yay! Removing WMP and Media Center seems to have done the trick! I can't stand WMP and I never use it, so good riddance to bad rubbish. This has been an annoyance for years, but I put up with it all this time because my main computer has been XP until about a month ago. My shiny new computer build runs Windows 7 Pro so I was finally forced to deal with it.

Thanks, everybody for the tips. I did try to search this forum for clues, but didn't find the one you pointed to, due to its unhelpful thread title I guess. I couldn't have figured this out on my own.

 

Re: Windows Explorer context menu

Reply #6
What I'd like to figure out is to how to get Windows to permanently stop trying to be helpful and taking folders with music in them and displaying them differently than general use folders. I know how to do this on a folder-by-folder basis, including child folders, but I've never figured out how to turn it off completely so that it stops trying to customize folders in the first place.

One side effect of this behavior is that on these folders, Windows overrides the foobar context entries with WMP.

I hate that feature, too. I don't want to see audio file metadata in Explorer. Nor do I want to see image thumbnails. I found a registry hack somewhere that makes the default folder type to be "General Items" and prevents Windows from changing that automatically. In effect, the Customize Folder feature is now disabled. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I got it, but when I was searching it seemed to be a common complaint with a common solution. If I find it again I'll post here.