Figure 3-16. File Type Doctor gives you the complete control over your file associations
that Vista doesn??™t
138 | Chapter 3: The Registry
Fix Wonky Shell Extensions
Shell extensions are programs??”usually .dll files??”that add features to Windows
Explorer. When they work, they??™re great, but when they falter, they can
cause poor performance, crashes, and other problems. You can disable shell
extensions by unregistering them (deleting their Registry keys) or by simply
disconnecting them from their associated file types, as described here.
The shell Registry key dissected in ???Customize Context Menus for Files,???
houses the keys responsible for the static items in a file??™s context menu. But
context menu shell extensions??”ones that can dyamically generate context
menu items??”are located in the shellex\ContextMenuHandlers Registry key.
Each subkey of ContextMenuHandlers usually contains nothing more than a
cryptic, 38-character code that looks like this:
{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}
This 32-digit hex code (a.k.a. 16-bit number) is a Class ID (or CLSID for
short) that points to a subkey of the same name in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\
{class_id}. Class IDs are the means by which shell extensions??”not to mention
components used in all types of software??”are registered in Windows
and connected to the programs that use them.
In addition to ContextMenuHandlers, you??™ll find these other keys inside the
shellex key:
DropHandler
Extensions in this branch are activated when you drag files of this type
or drop other files onto files of this type.
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