Device Manager - Add or Remove from "My Computer" Context Menu

Device Manager - Add or Remove from "My Computer" Context Menu

Add "Device Manager" to "My Computer" Context Menu in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8​

   Information

This will show you how to add or remove Device Manager to the "My Computer" context menu for all users in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.

You must be logged in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.

   Note

In Vista and Windows 7, this is for when users right click on Computer from the Start Menu, navigation pane in Windows Explorer, or desktop icon.

In Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows 8.1, and Windows RT 8.1, this is for when users right click or swipe down on This PC from the navigation pane in File Explorer, or the Computer desktop icon.

EXAMPLE: "Desktop Manager" added to "My Computer" Context Menu
NOTE: In Vista, the icons will not be displayed for the "Desktop Manager" context menu item as they do below in Windows 7.







Here's How:
1. To Add "Device Manager" to "My Computer" Context Menu
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 3 below.
Add_Device_Manager_to_My_Computer_Context_Menu.reg

Download


2. To Remove "Device Manager" from "My Computer" Context Menu
NOTE: This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 3 below.
Remove_Device_Manager_from_My_Computer_Context_Menu.reg

Download


3. Save the .reg file to your desktop.

4. Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

5. If prompted, click on Run, Yes (UAC-Windows 7/8) or Continue (UAC-Vista), Yes, and OK to approve merging the .reg file.

6. You can now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.
That's it
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• Device Manager - Access During Windows 7 Installation
• Device Manager Shortcut - Create
• How to Enable or Disable the Device Manager MMC Snap-in
• How to Add "Search" to "My Computer" Context Menu in Vista and Windows 7
• Add "Advanced System Properties" to "This PC" and "My Computer" Context Menu in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8
• How to Open Device Manager During Installation of Windows 8 and 8.1

 

[xxxdannyxxx]

Another handy one Shawn

Thanks

 

[Hikeman]

Hey man thank you very much!!!! ))) I just posted today this question and there you do the answer on my Facebook wall
Thanks Brink

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome guys.

 

[bartman2589]

Doesn't seem to work on Windows 7 64 bit, while the last line in the .reg file does work to open the device manager, for some reason the context menu entry doesn't show up when I right click on the 'Computer' icon on my desktop. I have the 'Manage' entry in my right click context menu and it works as expected, however this Device Manager tweak doesn't seem to work for me for some reason. I opened the relevant key in regedit and noticed several distinct differences in the information contained in the keys, I wonder if some of those differences might not be to blame for why it won't work for me. For example for the 'Manage' context menu entry there is a String Value named 'MUIVerb' with the following information in it "@%systemroot%\system32\mycomput.dll,-400", the 'Default' entry also contains the same information. Could this difference be the problem?

 

[bartman2589]

A little troubleshooting I tried

Additionally if I recreate the MUIVerb entry in the key for the Device Manager entry and copy the data to the 'default' entry it shows up in my context menu now as a 2nd 'Manage' entry, however it also messes up the icon settings for my hard drives when I open Windows Explorer. If I strip away the ',-400' it then shows up in the context menu as 'Device Manager' as it should (and even works properly, as did the 2nd 'Manage' entry mentioned above). However I'm left with the same icon problem as before, the icons show up looking like a sheet of paper with the corner folded over and an image in the center that looks kind of like the right hand pane of windows explorer in 'Icon' view mode. Any idea what I'm missing here?

 

[Brink]

Hello Bartman,

The differences with "Manage" make no difference. "Device Manager" works on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 as is.

Are you saying that it added "Device Manager" to your context menu, but doesn't do anything when you click on it?

How about from the other locations?

Are you logged in as an administrator?

 

[Brink]

Bartman,

Give this .reg file below a try to see how it works for you. It's the same except using an "Expandable String Value" instead of "String Value" entries. It'll remove the old entry, and replace it with this one for expandable.

 

[bartman2589]

Thank you for taking the time to reply, let me clarify things a little.

When I first tried the .reg file from the main article on this thread it didn't add anything to my 'Computer' right click context menu, not a single new entry.

Then I tried playing around with the registry entries I mentioned and by copying the 2 values from the pre-existing 'Manage' context menu entry (the one that has the blue and yellow UAC style shield icon next to it). I was first able to get a second 'Manage' entry to appear in my 'Computer' context menu, this one had the icon depicted showing the little toolbox in front of a computer though, when I clicked this new 'Manage' entry it opened the Device Manager. The other one opened a window with a title of 'Computer Management'.

I was hoping it could get it to actually show as 'Device Manager' in my 'Computer' right click context menu so I tried removing the ",-400" from the copied values. This time after restarting it successfully showed up as 'Device Manager' and even had the correct icon still too. And this new 'Device Manager' entry functioned as the original .reg file was supposed to (even though it didn't for me until I started playing around with regestry entries within the key that they .reg file creates only, no other keys were modified by me).

Unfortunately around this time I noticed that my Hard Drive icons were 'missing' when I opened 'Computer'. The image below is clipped from a screen shot and depicts the drives listed in 'Computer', as you can see the icons for drive C:/D:/K: are missing their 'normal' icons.


The new test file you shared worked right off the bat to add the 'Device Manager' entry but even though I had deleted the changes I had made in the registry before using it I still have messed up drive icons.

 

[bartman2589]

I did uninstall one piece of software around the time this was giving me problems and I wonder if maybe that might be partly to blame for the problem now that I think of it (Trial version of Hard Drive Sentinel, I was hoping it would display S.M.A.R.T. data for an external drive I have that I think is on the brink of failing since it makes some odd noises occasionally). But I used a pretty popular removal tool that I've had excellent results with in the past to clean up any leftovers from it (IObit Uninstaller, many reviews rate it even higher than Revo Uninstaller, and it's a much cleaner and easier to use program too).

I tried rebuilding the icon cache too hoping it would restore the default hard drive icons on reboot. It's a little odd I think that it only seems to be hard drives that are affected, not flash drives, or cd/dvd drives (which is what is really making me lean towards Hard Drive Sentinel as the cause now).

 

[Brink]

Yep, it sounds like the "Hard Drive Sentinel" may have done something since there's nothing in the .reg files from this tutorial that would affect drive icons.

As a test, download and merge the .reg files for the listed Drive and Directory options listed in the tutorial below. They will restore the default associations for these items, and hopefully the default icon as well.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/19449-default-file-type-associations-restore.html

 

[bartman2589]

Ok, got my drive icons fixed, the idiots who created Hard Drive Sentinel have a feature that changes the default drive icons for some reason, and the feature is enabled by default but when you uninstall the software it doesn't restore the default icons for you, you have to first go into HD Sentinel's options and uncheck the feature to change the drive icons and THEN you can uninstall the software and not have problems with the drive icons being messed up.

Though this doesn't change the fact that initially the .reg file that's supposed to add a 'Device Manager' context menu entry did not work at all for me, and only worked after I 'mucked around a bit' with some registry settings that I probably shouldn't have.

But the 'Add_test.reg' file that Brink posted worked fine for me after I cleaned up the previous entry using the 'Remove_Device_Manager_from_My_Computer_Context_Menu.reg' file above. I don't know why the original one wouldn't work, but at least now I have the context menu entry and it works to open the device manager the way I wanted. Though I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't have been easier to have it simply launch "devmgmt.msc" instead of the whole convoluted 'rundll.exe...........' method.

 

[Brink]

I'm happy to hear that you got it all sorted and working now.

If you use just devmgmt.msc instead in the registry, you'll get an error instead of Device Manager opening. This is even though running devmgmt.msc normally works.

 

[Hikeman]

Hello Brink.
Will this work with Windows 8/8.1 as well ?
Thanks

 

[Brink]

Hello Hikeman,

Yes, this will work in Windows 8/8.1 as well.

 

[Hikeman]

This will work, even if you have Start8 installed on your Windows 8/8.1,, meaning if you right click on the "Computer" in the start menu of the Start8 you will see the Device Manage!!

Thanks Brink

 

[Brink]

You're welcome.