Solved Right clicking in Windows Explorer slow

When right clicking a JPG file in Windows Explorer so that I can choose it to load into Photoshop Elements, the response is very slow. It never used to be this bad and has only reached this stage in recent weeks. Photoshop is not my default JPG program which is why I don't simply double click on the JPG file to open it. I have already tried adjusting the 'MenuShowDelay' setting in the registry from 400 to 100 to no effect. This was a tip I found while trying to find a cure online.
I have attached a video to hopefully explain my issue - note that on some occasions when I right click on a file the first context menu has a transparent background and I have to wait on it turning white, which makes the process even slower.

View attachment Recording 2026-05-22 123237.mp4

I suggest you open a co-pilot chat.. WHILE VIEWING THIS THREAD, open co-pilot and enter "Right clicking in windows explorer slow"

The response I got gave very detailed troubleshooting steps, too long to post hereand requires further info from you.

Hello,

In addition, you can try troubleshooting using the method in the tutorial below to see it may reveal a cause.

I didn't know Brink had a tutorial on this. For sure try his solution first.

This is the standard approach for dealing with a context menu appearing slowly - identify potential culprit shell extension or extensions.

However, your video actually shows the context menu, and then that 'Open With' opens slowly.
That's potentially quite different to the objective of the tutorial, which addresses the context menu being slow to open.

Therefore you may wish to review which programs you may have added that are potential candidates for opening a jpg file.

Given that your issue appears to be with the Open With menu, you might wish to try a similar approach (disabling entries) but aimed at the Open With menu.

Shellmenunew (like Shellexview, by Nirsofer) allows you to enable and disable Open With entries.

Here are your Open With options from your video:


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Note on the standard approach to diagnosing a context menu which is slow to open:

When choosing which to try disabling, given

It never used to be this bad and has only reached this stage in recent weeks.

Click to expand...

- consider first which of those you may have added in 'recent weeks'.

Should you not find all the shell extensions (context menu entries) shown by Shellexview, then Autoruns (free from MS) may show more- and equally provides check box enable/disable.

Thanks for all the responses. Using Brink's tutorial I thought at first it wasn't going to work but rebooting the PC after deselecting one of the Nvidia extensions seems to have done the trick and right-clicking is now much faster.

Great news.