Manage Shell Extensions in Windows with ShellExView

Jan 24, 2010 by Shivendu Madhava

Shell Extensions are in-process COM objects which extends the abilities of Windows operating system. Most shell extensions are automatically installed by the operating system, but there are also many other applications that install additional shell extension components. For example: If you install WinZip on your computer, you’ll see a special WinZip menu when you right-click on a Zip file. This menu is created by adding a shell extension to the system.

The ShellExView utility displays the details of shell extensions installed on your computer, and allows you to easily disable and enable each shell extension.

ShellExView can be used for solving context-menu problems in Explorer environment.

System Requirements

This utility works on any version of Windows, starting from Windows 98 and up to Windows 7. x64 versions of Windows are also supported.

The ShellExView is a standalone executable. It doesn’t require any installation process or additional DLLs. Just copy it to any folder you want, and run it. After you run it, wait a few seconds until ShellExView loads all shell extensions items.
The main window of ShellExView displays the details of all shell extensions in 12 different columns:

Column Name	Description
Extension Name	The name of the shell extension, as it appears in the Registry.
Disabled	Tells you whether the shell extension is disabled.
Type	The type of the shell extension. There are more than 10 different types of shell extensions. For more information about the types of shell extensions, see the table below.
Description	Description of the shell extension item. This information is extracted from the DLL file that contains this shell extension.
Version	Version of the shell extension item. This information is extracted from the DLL file that contains this shell extension.
Product Name	The name of the product that created this shell extension. This information is extracted from the DLL file that contains this shell extension.
Company	The name of the company that created this shell extension.
My Computer	Tells you whether the “My Computer” folder contains this shell extension. This column is only relevant to “Shell Folder” extensions.
Desktop	Tells you whether the “Desktop” folder contains this shell extension. This column is only relevant to “Shell Folder” extensions.
Control Panel	Tells you whether the “Control Panel” folder contains this shell extension. This column is only relevant to “Shell Folder” extensions under Windows 2000/XP.
Filename	The filename that contains this shell extension.
CLSID	The CLSID of this shell extension.
File Created Time	The creation time of the extension dll. You can use this field in order to find out when the extension was installed on your system.
CLSID Modified Time	The Modified Time of CLSID in the Registry. Only available under Windows NT/2000/XP.
Microsoft	Specifies whether the extension was created by Microsoft (‘Yes’ value) or by other company (‘No’ value).
File Extensions	Specifies a list of file extensions (like .txt, .html) that use this shell extension.
File Attributes	Specifies the attributes of the shell extension file. (H for hidden, R for read-only, and so on)
File Size	Specifies the size (in bytes) of the shell extension file.

There are more than 10 types of shell extension, here’s a small description for each type:

Extension Type	Description
Shell Folder	Provides special system folders like “Printers”, “Fonts”, “Recycle Bin”, and more…
Context Menu	Provides the ability to add new items to the context menu of particular file type.
Drag & Drop Handler	Provides the ability to add new items to the context menu that appears when you drag a file with right mouse button.
Icon Handler	Provides the ability to dynamically assign icons to file objects.
Copy Hook Handler	This type of shell extension is called when a file is moved, copies, renamed or deleted.
Drop Handler	Provides the ability to control the “Drop” behavior of files.
Data Handler	Provides the ability to copy files/objects to the clipboard.
Property Sheet	Property Sheet dialog boxes.
Search Handler	Provides the ability to create a system search engine (Like the standard “Search For Files or Folders” module)
Column Handler	Provides the ability to add new columns to the details view of Explorer window.
Thumbnail	Provides the ability to display images in “Thumbnail” view.
Browser Helper Object	Provides the ability to customize and control the Internet Explorer browser.
IE Toolbar	Provides the ability to add new toolbars into Internet Explorer (like Yahoo! Toolbar)
Explorer Bar	Provides the ability to add Explorer bars to Internet Explorer.
URL Search Hook	Browser extension stored under Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\URLSearchHooks.
System	All other types of shell extensions that ShellExView utility cannot recognize are categorized as “System” type.

Disable/Enable Shell Extensions

The ShellExView utility allows you to disable and enable the shell extensions components on your system.
In order to disable or enable a shell extension item, select the desired item, and
from the File menu (or from the pop-up menu) select the appropriate option – “Enable Selected Items” or “Disable Selected Items”.

Here’s 2 examples of useful things that you can do with this feature:

• Context Menu: Some applications, like WinZip, CuteFTP, and others, add some
  items to the context menu when you right-click on a file in explorer window.
  If you disable the appropriate shell extension, you won’t get these additional menu items.
  In order to locate the desired shell extension item:
  1. Sort the extensions list by the “Type” column and look at all “Context Menu” items.
  2. Search the application that creates the menu you want to disable. The icon near each item can help to locate the desired shell extension.
• Shell Folder: When you enter into some special folders like “History” and
  “Temporary Internet Files”, you don’t see the real file system, but the a
  virtual folder that the shell extension create for you.
  If you want to watch the real file system inside “History” or “Temporary Internet Files”,
  you can disable the appropriate shell extension items.

Mark Suspicious Shell Extensions

Most shell extensions use standard file extensions (.dll, .ocx or .cpl) as well as they usually don’t turn on their system attribues (read-only/hidden/system).
If ShellExView detect shell extension with unusual file extension or with unusual attribute (e.g: shell extension dll that is marked as hidden in the file system),
it’ll be marked in red color. It’s recommended to deeply check these unusual shell extensions to insure that they are not unwanted malicious programs that penetrated into your system.

Download ShellExView in Zip file

Download ShellExView for x64

What People Are Looking For:

manage windows shell extensions, column handler shell extension, shellexview clsid, shellextcolumnhandler win7, shell extension manage computer, shell extension dll get the system folders, remove shell integration with shellxview, Property Shell Extension Windows 7, manage shell extensions xp, icone shell extension dll.