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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

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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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    Exactly what I needed, restart explorer.exe or your pc after adding the reg files – SuperMar1o Dec 19 '22 at 14:37
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    I cannot seem to edit my old comment. New info: At first, this did not work. The "New -> Text Document" already appeared when right-clicking on the Desktop background, but not right-clicking within Windows Explorer. Strange enough. Both of these remain unchanged after taking this action. Then restoring my registry backup seemed to change nothing. Now, a day later, and magically (because that's how Windows works), "New -> Text Document" appears everywhere. I presume due to a reboot. I hope I can be more scientific next time. – Jason Doucette Mar 02 '23 at 04:46
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    A reboot is not required. Just open the task manager and restart the Explorer.exe process. – not_a_generic_user May 05 '23 at 18:30
  • No reboot/logout needed, it seems. Nor Explorer restart. 2023-11 – Alen Siljak Nov 07 '23 at 14:10
  • It didn't work on W11 23H2 22531.3235 but looked promising! – Yumi Koizumi Mar 10 '24 at 02:16
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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
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  • That doesn't even show up here. No notepad in the list, weird. – Ezequiel Barbosa Aug 28 '22 at 02:38
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    Slight variation worked for me after 22H2 W11 feature update. Menu has changed - no three dot pop-up menu. Select use "set defaults by file type" Select .txt change default app from Notepad to Wordpad, and OK. Then set it back to notepad. Now text file appears in Explorer context menu. – Tom Collinge Oct 10 '22 at 08:17
  • Didn't work for me. I tried Repair and Reset. Neither worked. – Scott M. Stolz Oct 21 '22 at 07:51
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    Worked for me. It's now under "Installed Apps". After resetting Notepad I had to close all explorer windows then use Task Manager to restart Windows Explorer. – Bob Stein May 13 '23 at 11:58
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    Worked like a charm for me – Bruce Johnston Jan 11 '24 at 04:58
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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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    I just tried this but the content menu didn't update. i used task manager to kill and restart explorer.exe and then it appears. obviously a machine restart would also do the same. but thanks - this was the quickest method to set this up. – David Moylan Jun 10 '22 at 03:21
  • This a long version of the .reg file above. – Yumi Koizumi Mar 10 '24 at 02:21
5

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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    Should be the best answer tbh, no need to configure anything though you have to have MS Office installed. – Luke Vo Jun 15 '22 at 15:38
  • You can also select Rich Text Format, give it a different extension (.txt, .php, etc.) and then delete the one line that the file contains. RTF files are just text files with RTF tags in them. – Scott M. Stolz Oct 21 '22 at 07:37
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    Windows 11 doesn't come with Word, and there is no "Word Document" in its context menu. – David Spector Jul 29 '23 at 23:21
  • OP didn't as for work-arounds, though... You guys are usually hyper-strict about that... – Yumi Koizumi Mar 10 '24 at 02:18
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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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    I can confirm this works even if you've already set the clumsy new context menu back to the old one. If you'd have the bright idea to install and then uninstall hoping it'll leave the desired behavior without the software, I just want to note here don't bother, it'll remove it from the context menu after uninstall. – nopara73 Jan 13 '23 at 13:53