Re-add "create new text file" to Windows 11 context menu

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?

4 Answers

Load up Regedit, and follow the below steps.

1. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID
2. Right-click the folder and select New > Key
3. Assign the name {86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}
4. Right-click the new key, and select New > Key
5. Name it InprocServer32
6. Edit the default string inside the InprocServer32 key, and set the data to empty/null.
7. Reboot, and the context-menu should be available.

What spikey_richie surgests will reset the whole context menu back to the look from Windows 10 which might be what someone wants.

I was looking for a way to only get the "Create New Text Document"-option back. Found this great page:

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

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.

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.