The right-click menu Microsoft previewed in August is now a download you can actually install

Back in August, Microsoft showed Insiders a File Explorer context menu you could edit. It has arrived. KB5127936 went out on 28 October for Windows 11 25H2 and 26H2, taking them to builds 26200.9818 and 26300.9818, and it carries 41 changes. The menu is the headline, and we wrote about the preview when it was still months away.

Right-click a file and there is now a Customize menu option. You can switch built-in commands such as Send to and Create shortcut off, add Print, decide whether an app's entries sit in the main list or get pushed into a submenu, and show Cut, Copy, Paste, Rename, Delete and Share as labelled text instead of that row of small icons. Hold Shift while right-clicking and the old full menu still appears. Microsoft says the new one opens faster, and it is rolling out gradually, so it may not show up the moment the update finishes.

The quieter addition is arguably more useful. Cloud rebuild reinstalls Windows using an image and your drivers pulled from Windows Update, and it works on a machine that will not start. No USB stick, no borrowing a second computer to make one.

One reason to wait: Microsoft lists an unresolved problem with USB Audio Class 1.0 devices, meaning older USB headsets, speakers and audio interfaces, which can throw Device Manager errors or stop producing sound. This is an optional preview, so nothing installs unless you go to Settings, Windows Update and choose it, and everything in it reaches everyone on 10 November regardless. If Windows Update itself starts misbehaving after any of this, Tendvane's Windows Update repair wizard resets the components that usually cause it before you go hunting through forum threads.