How to remove the right click menu in VLC Media Player?

Question

I am adapting VLC to make a custom video player. I chose VLC because of its ability to play lots of formats, and because it allows me develop a custom skin for it very easily.

But I also want to restrict user access to the file system, for which I need to disable the right click menu. Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

1. Open the Registry Editor (regedit.exe). Find HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell
2. Under this key find each VLC key you would like to remove from folder context menus
3. (Optional) right-click each key and choose Export. Save the exported reg files as PlayWithVLC-dir and AddToPlaylistVLC-dir. These .reg files can later be used to restore the context menu entries.
4. Delete the key

Unfortunately VLC doesn't have an Preferences option to toggle this.

Solution found in the Remove context menu forum thread.

Answer 2

Instead of playing around in the registry:

1. uninstall VLC. You will be asked, if you want to keep your user settings. Say yes if you want to.
2. download VLC installer again http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
3. during installation uncheck the "Context Menus" install option.

For some people it was possible to skip step 1. But that may not work always.