Microsoft is massively improving Windows 11's right-click menu — but it should have been like this from the start

Windows 11's right-click menu has some big changes in testing This context menu is being streamlined and is now more responsive You can also customize the entries in the menu, or even switch it to be like Windows 10's version Microsoft is finally streamlining Windows 11's context menu — the one which pops up when you right click something on the desktop — as well as bringing in more customization choices.

In a blog post for a new preview build in the Experimental channel, Microsoft announced that it's rolling out a redesigned context menu for File Explorer (meaning the files and folders on your desktop).

It's "designed to feel faster, cleaner, and easier to tailor to the way you work", and Microsoft has made two major improvements here.

Firstly, the right-click menu is a lot less cluttered, with far fewer options now appearing in the list by default ( building on some previous work along these lines ).

On top of that, there's new functionality in Windows 11's settings, enabling you to customize what appears in the context menu.

Windows Central reports that it has tried this revamped right-click menu, and that it's not just trimmed down, but also faster to load (no doubt reducing the bloat has helped to improve performance).

You can also choose to have a Windows 10-style context menu, where the elements at the top in the horizontal panel (cut, copy, rename and so forth) are integrated into the vertical menu list (removing the top panel, essentially).

It's possible to ditch any entry you don't want from the menu, too, so gone are the days when you installed a third-party app and it annoyed you by placing itself in the context menu when you didn't want that to happen.

You can now simply banish the offender.

Analysis: it's about time (Image credit: Microsoft) In my opinion, you should have been able to tailor the right-click menu to your own preferences right from the very off in Windows 11.

Or at least you should have been able to remove the likes of third-party additions to the menu, even if Microsoft kept the core defaults set in stone.

Still, Microsoft has improved the context menu immeasurably here, and the more responsive performance is great to hear about.

Windows 11 users have long complained that it's ridiculous that right-clicking on something could mean a delay of a few seconds before the menu actually appears.

This is a basic piece of interface functionality, and not one that should be running slowly on an average PC.