How can I create my custom Shell Context Handlers for Windows?

Question

Problem

Language: C# 2.0 or later

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I would like to register context handlers to create menues when the user right clicks certain files (in my case *.e

Answer 1

Aside from the caveats that have been mentioned concerning the implementation of shell extensions in managed code, what you'd basically need to do is the following:

First, create a COM component in C# that implements the IShellExtInit IContextMenu interfaces. How to create COM components in C# is described here. How to implement the necessary interfaces is described in this article. While the description is for a C++ implementation, you can apply that knowledge to you C# version.

Your COM component will have GUID called the Class-ID or CLSID. You need to register that ID with your file type as a context-menu shell extension:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.eic\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\MyShellExt
    (Default) -> {YOUR-COMPONENTS-CLSID}

Also make sure that you registered your component correctly as described in the C# COM tutorial. You should find it in the registry under

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{YOUR-COMPONENTS-CLSID}
    InprocServer32
        (Default) -> C:\WINDOWS\system32\mscoree.dll
        Class -> YourImplClass
        assembly -> YourAssembly, version=..., Culture=neutral, PublicKey=...
        ...

Good luck...