Batch file in right click menu

Question

I'm making a batch file that is going to encrypt information. I made it so when I right click on the object and click on the "test" button it runs the batch file.

In regedit I added

Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\Test\command

command's data is

C:\Users\%username%\Desktop\encrypt.bat

What do I need to do to the data (in the registry key i added) and what is it stored as in my variable?

Answer 1

You need to associate to the filetype the script you want to launch on that type. On Windows, all this is based on the extension (at least on XP, I don't know about 7, but I doubt it has changed). Say the extension of your files are ".abc", and your app is:

c:\program files\dummy\process.bat

(I dropped the variable for the moment, I'm not sure how this behaves in .reg files)

So just edit a config.reg text file that will hold the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; the extension .abc gets associated with a file type
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.abc]
@="abc-file"

; the file-type gets a name (that appears in explorer in field "type")
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\abc-file]
@="foo file"

; What will appear in the contextual menu when selecting an .abc file
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\abc-file\shell\cmdname-1]
@="--- Process ! ----"

; What to do with it
; here, %1 is the file given as argument of the script
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\abc-file\shell\cmdname-1\command]
@="\"c:\\program files\\dummy\\process.bat\" \"%1\""

Finally import it. You're done.

Additional comments:

• All the strange quotes and backslashes are there to allow correct handling of names with spaces. Yes, I now, nobody has spaces in file names.. Or do they ? Anyway, that happens!
• You can of course have several commands for a file type. Just dupe the last two keys of the .reg (cmdname-1 ==> cmdname-2)
• You can also associate different file extensions to the same file type. for example, HTML files can have either .htm or .html
• You can even associate an action to folders. replace the file type by "folder"
• It can be useful to provide a "uninstall" functionality. Just create another reg file and prefixe the created keys with '-'.