As much as I (truly) hate Windows, my corporate PC at work runs Windows, and I don't have any option to change that; so sometimes I do have touch Windows (ewww...). Here, I will go over editing the Windows "Send To" menu.

For my 9-5 job, I have a bunch of internal tools to help me diagnose and troubleshoot a variety of issues, and these tools can, and will, open a variety of files. Most of the time, these files do not have a consistent file name or extension, so I cannot rely on the Windows file associations to properly associate files with programs. Also, since most of these internal tools are single executable files, and not installed like typical applications, Windows is once again very inconsistent with the "Open with" menu.

So what to do? I initially started with a bunch of shortcuts on my desktop. This worked OK-ish... First off, it meant that everytime I needed to open a file with one of these tools, I would have to minimize all my open windows to get to the desktop, but couldn't use the "Show Desktop" button because that would also minimize the window with the file. The other problem with the icons is that they keep getting re-arranged at random. While I would normally just work to address that problem, there are corporate policies in place that are preventing me from working on that. So I need something else.

I remember from many a year ago, that there was a way to edit the "Send To" menu. It was on an episode of "The Screen Savers" with Leo Laporte... I remember he added a shortcut to the Send To menu within the Send To menu, that way you could very easily send something to the send to menu, and he was SO excited about it. But that was over a decade ago, and on Windows XP. Does this still work for Windows 7?

Yes, yes it does.

Granted, I don't specifically remember all the FINE details of what Leo did that episode, so I can't comment on the exact procedure used that day, but below, we'll go over how to do this for Windows 7. In the end, as simple as it might be, it's not super obvious, and since I do this so INfrequently, I wanted to have it noted somewhere for my own future reference.

1. Open Windows Explorer
2. In the address bar, enter: "shell:sendto" (without the quotes"") and press enter
3. And here you are, the Send To menu.
4. Here, add a shortcut to the application you want to send files to.
5. DONE
   Note: You can also delete some entries that you feel are unneeded.

Feel free to let me know what you have done with this in the comments below.

Add comment