As in Windows 7, even in Windows 10 there is a hidden feature that is really useful, but little known. Everyone knows that pressing the right mouse button on a file icon or on a folder in Windows opens a context menu. However, if you hold down the SHIFT key and right-click on a Windows file or folder, this contextual menu is wider and has a greater number of options that remained hidden .
(the Shift key on some keyboards is the SHIFT key that appears with an arrow going upwards)
To see how this trick works, you need to open the Windows Explorer, select a file or a folder and press Shift-right mouse button to notice how the contextual menu is different from what appears when you press only the right button.
READ ALSO: Use the CTRL and SHIFT keys to navigate faster on each browser
In particular, pressing Shift-right button on a file, options appear such as:
- Add to Start menu : (under share with ) allows you to quickly add a link to that file or folder to the Windows start menu, thus avoiding having to do it by hand, by dragging the icon.
- Copy as path : with this option you add to the Windows clipboard, the folder path of that file which you can then paste on any text box or on a Word sheet. The path would be the directory to get to that file, that is, for example, " C: \ Users \ pomhey \ Pictures \ ioalmare.jpg ". This path is useful in all those programs and tools that require it, when creating new connections or when launching dos commands.
If you press Shift-right mouse button on a folder instead these hidden menu items appear:
- Open in a new process : opening a folder in a new process means starting another explorer.exe.
To most, this does not mean anything and to explain it I could take the example of a browser like Google Chrome, where each new tab is a separate process so, if one of them crashed, the other would remain quietly alive. On Windows, in a PC with a lot of RAM, you can make all windows open in new processes from the folder options in the View menu.
- Open command window here or Open Powershell window here is the option to open a command prompt starting from that folder, to launch the files contained in it via command line.
- Copy as path is the same option explained above.
Depending on the type of file, other options may appear. For example, pressing Shift-right button, on an executable file, .exe, the item " Run as another user " appears, useful on PCs used with multiple accounts, if that file had specific permissions. To run as another user, however, you need the account password.
You can also notice a lot of extra options when you go to the Send to: item with many different paths (which are those inside the folder C: / users / username ) that remain hidden in the normal context menu of the right button. Furthermore, if you want to add a folder to the " Send to " menu list, you don't need external tools and programs, just type in the address box of the window, at the top, " shell: sendto ". To add new paths to the Send To menu, just drag and drop other folders into this folder.
All in all, the secret menu associated with the Shift-right key combination is another useful feature that is very hidden but also useful to know.
Finally, I remember that you can disable the right button options if it were too long and took too long to load.
