How do you disable ‘Show more options’ in Windows 11?

The menu system of Microsoft Windows has a chequered past and the current version is proving to be no different. Microsoft’s endeavour to condense the right-click context menu has introduced a compact version of selected items which can only be expanded by clicking Show more options. This innovation hasn’t impressed everyone, so this Big Tech Question guide will restore the Windows 11 to full size and show you how to disable Show more options.

Editing Windows 11’s registry

To switch off Windows 11’s Show more options, we’ll need to add an entry to the Registry. If the thought of this has elevated your heart rate, then a little further down is the link to a file which will do the heavy lifting for you. However, if you fancy a dabble yourself, open the Windows menu and type REGEDIT into the search. Click to open the Registry Editor.

(Warning: take great care when editing the Registry as you can do serious bother to Windows if things go wrong. It’s advisable to take a Registry back up before tweaking.)

Look to the top of the Registry Editor’s window, just below the File > Edit > View menu to find a text box. It’s well hidden (look at the image above for the flashing red box), so don’t be surprised if you’ve never seen it before. Into the text box type:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\

Right-click on CLSID selecting New then Key from the menu. Name this new key:

{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}

This time, right-click on {86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}, selecting New then Key from the menu. Name this new key:

InprocServer32

Left-click on the new InproceServer32 key and look at the right-hand panel of the Registry Editor window. We need to make the simplest adjustment to the string, so double left-click on (Default) and the Edit String window will appear.  Click OK. That’s it – I said it was simple.

The next stage is to close the Registry Editor window and restart the PC.

Right click a file on the desktop and you’ll see that the traditional Windows right-click menu has reappeared, disabling Show more options.

Disabling Show more options the easy way

To speed up the process, we’ve created a registry file which you can download to your PC. Unzip the file (7-Zip is a great app), then double click the file and Windows 11 will display a few cautionary messages before importing the information. This file will create the keys listed above and if you want to see what is inside, open it in a text editor such as Notepad.

Are there any easier ways to disable Show more options?

There are, but they’re not permanent. Another way to disable Show more options is to left-click the icon whose context menu you wish to view and press Shift + F10 – it’s clunky but it works.

Another option which may become available in a future Windows 11 release is to Shift + Right-Click on the icon. This should also bypass the Show more options menu.