random neuron misfires

Saturday, October 4th, 2008 at 6:59 pm | 4,703 views | trackback url

One of THE most-annoying features of Windows is the “Send To” menu that shows up when you right-click on anything on the desktop or in any folder. As with most things created by Microsoft, the idea was sound, but the implementation is absolutely horrible..

The problem with this “feature” is that when you run your mouse past that option to reach options in the right-click menu that are lower down (Delete, Properties and so on), your mouse will pass “Send To”, which then has to enumerate every single application that is registered with it for the various options provided there (Mail Recipient, Clipboard, Desktop, My Documents, 3½ Drive, and so on). This can take mere seconds to almost a full minute every single time you right-click and move past the option!

If you’re like me and are creating and moving around hundreds to thousands files per-day on Windows, this can be downright maddening. In fact, if you right-click an icon in your QuickLaunch menu and let “Send To” do its disk-thrashing dance, and then do it again seconds later, it STILL has to go enumerate all of those same applications again and thrash the disk again. The list of applications and providers registered with the “Send To” menu aren’t cached in any way.

But there is a solution: Get rid of the “Send To” menu completely!

To do that, use the following steps:

1. Launch “regedit” and find the following registry key:
   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Send To

2. Double-click the string value named “Default” that you see there. The value you see there ({7BA4C740-9E81-11CF-99D3-00AA004AE837}) is the one that enables the “Send To” menu.
3. Delete the value and save the key. Poof! No more “Send To” menu.

This may seem drastic and brute-force, but I tried several other approaches, including removing all of the applications that were in the C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Send To\ folder.

Now at least the system isn’t hanging for 30-40 seconds every time I right-click something and roll my mouse past that menu option.

Last Modified: Sunday, March 6th, 2016 @ 00:42

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