Windows 11's right-click menu is being rebuilt, and you finally get to choose what's in it

Right-click a file in Windows 11 and you get a row of unlabelled icons, a short list, and a "Show more options" that opens a second, longer menu underneath the first. It has annoyed people since 2021. Microsoft is rebuilding it, and the preview went out to Windows Insiders on August 17.

The genuinely useful part is a settings page for the menu itself. You'll be able to switch built-in commands on and off - Send to, Create shortcut, and Print, which wasn't in the Windows 11 menu at all until now. You choose which installed apps get a slot in the main menu and which get pushed into a submenu. And two options read like direct answers to years of complaints: put command names back as text instead of icons, the way Windows 10 did it, and move Properties down to the bottom where it used to live.

File Explorer itself gets attention too. Microsoft says it launches faster and that dozens of the small stalls behind those one-second folder freezes have been fixed. Renaming a file won't be interrupted mid-typing by background cloud syncing any more, and changing only the capitalisation of a name now shows up straight away instead of appearing to do nothing at all.

None of this has reached ordinary PCs. It's Insider preview code, Microsoft says it will keep adjusting it based on feedback, and realistically that means months before it arrives through Windows Update.

Part of why that menu got so crowded in the first place is that installers quietly add entries to it. Tendvane's Safety check lists programs and browser add-ons you don't remember choosing, which is frequently the same list.