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I have just upgraded to Windows 11 on my pc.

As a C++/cmake programmer, I constantly use the option "create new -> text file" on the context menu, but Windows 11 has removed this option.

Is there a way to get this option back, e.g via regedit, or some new tool?

Ian Young
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5 Answers5

61

What spikey_richie suggests will reset the whole context menu back to the look from Windows 10 which might be what someone wants but does not answer the OP's specific question.

I was looking for a way to only get the "Create New Text Document"-option back. Found this great page: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/24412-add-remove-default-new-context-menu-items-windows-10-a.html

And used the "Restore_New_Text_Document_context_menu_item.reg"-file which worked great.

To only restore what the OP asked, the following .reg file is the only thing needed. A sign out/sign in OR reboot is needed for explorer.exe to pick up the change.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.txt\ShellNew]
"ItemName"=hex(2):40,00,25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,6e,00,6f,00,74,00,65,00,70,00,61,00,64,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,2c,00,2d,00,34,00,37,00,30,00,00,00
"NullFile"=""


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\txtfilelegacy]
@="Text Document"
Peregrino69
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Markus Knappen Johansson
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50

What worked for me was resetting the Notepad app -- Settings; Apps; Apps & features; next to "Notepad", select the three dot pop-up menu; Advanced options; select Reset. It appears to effectively do an uninstall/reinstall of notepad and resets the associated settings. "Text Document" has returned as an option under the right-click, New menu.

Windows 11 settings - Apps Notepad Advanced options

Windows 11 settings - Notepad reset

You will likely need to restart Explorer for the new option to show up:

Task Manager, Explorer selected and the "Restart task" button highlighted

Peter Duniho
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Brian Radford
  • 509
  • 4
  • 3
13

If you want to manually change the registry (always make a backup before editing) without resetting it to the Windows 10 look, here are the steps that worked for me:

  1. Open the registry editor and move to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.txt
  2. Add a new Key called ShellNew
  3. Move to the new key (i.e. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.txt\ShellNew)
  4. Add a new String Value with the name NullFile

Now, the only thing missing is the name shown in the context menu. Because it has none per default, the entry does not show up yet. To change this:

  1. Move to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\txtfilelegacy
  2. Change the (Default) value to Text File (or any other name you'd like)

Et voilà! It should show up, no reboot needed. (Edit: Maybe you do need to restart explorer.exe, as David Moylan pointed out.) If you want to add a template for the file, this might work, but I did not try it.

Iapetos
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10

Not an answer to the question per se, but a quick work-around:

  1. New > Word Document
  2. Rename it to myfile.txt

Blank word files are just blank files, so this creates a blank file with a .txt extension, as needed.

Andrew
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3

Install Windows Notepad from Microsoft Store: https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9MSMLRH6LZF3

Then either:

  1. Restart Windows Explorer by going to Task Manager > Processes > Windows Explorer > Right Click > Restart

  2. OR restart windows

and then it should pop up

kym
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