Windows 11 now lets you quickly add or remove the ‘Create shortcut’ context menu option on the desktop using Settings and the Registry. Here’s how.
Quick steps: Open Settings, go to “Personalization” > “Context menu“, and turn the “Create shortcut” toggle ON or OFF.
When you right-click on the desktop, you generally see a lot of options in the context menu. One such option is “Create shortcut”. Using this option, you can quickly create a shortcut to any app, folder, or file. While this is a useful feature, this rarely ever used. More often than not, when we want to create a shortcut for a file, folder, or app, you can either hold down the ‘Alt’ key and drag & drop or right-click and select “Send to” > “Shortcut”.
If you are not using the ‘Create shortcut’ option in the context menu, you can easily remove it using the Settings app or Registry Editor. If in the future you want to show the option, you can just as easily reverse your decision and add the ‘Create shortcut’ option to the right-click context menu. In this Windows how-to guide, I will show the two methods. Let’s get started.
Before You Start
- You should be using Windows 11 build 26340.9212 (v26H2) or higher.
Add or Remove ‘Create Shortcut’ Option from Right-Click Menu Using Settings
To start off, launch the Settings app by searching for it in the Start menu. You can also press the “Windows key + I” shortcut. Once it opens, go to the “Personalization” tab on the left sidebar. In the right panel, click the “Context menu” option (you may need to scroll down a bit).
On this page, find the “Create shortcut” toggle and do the following:
- Turn OFF the toggle: Removes the “Create shortcut” option from the right-click context menu.
- Turn ON the toggle: Adds the “Create shortcut” option to the right-click context menu.
After changing the option, you can close Settings. The changes are instant, and you will see that the ‘Create shortcut’ option is either added or removed depending on how you configured the toggle.
Add or Remove ‘Create Shortcut’ Option from Right-Click Menu Using Registry Editor
In addition to using the Settings app, you can also add or remove the ‘Create shortcut’ option from the context menu using the Registry Editor. While the process itself is easy, I recommend you back up the registry. If something goes wrong, the backup is your undo button (the instructions for it are in the linked guide).
Open the Start menu, search for “Registry Editor“, and click the “Open” option or click the top result. Once it opens, go to the following folder. You can either copy and paste the following path in the Registry Editor or navigate to it manually.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ContextMenu\Preferences\verbs\link
Now, right-click the “link” folder on the left sidebar and select “New“, then “DWORD (32-bit) Value“. Name the value “Enabled“.
After creating the value, double-click it and set its Value Data as below, then click “OK” to save the change.
- Set Value Data to 0: Removes the “Create shortcut” option from the right-click menu.
- Set Value Data to 1: Adds the “Create shortcut” option to the right-click menu.
After that, close the Registry Editor and restart your computer. After restarting, the ‘Create shortcut’ context menu option is shown or hidden based on your registry configuration.
That’s it. Write down below any questions or comments you have. I’ll respond as quickly as possible.
Thank you, Vamsi.
