Howes-IT-Going - Register .DLL and .OCX Shortcuts

Adding regsvr32.exe to the Right Mouse Click Shortcut Menu

In a development environment, one frequently has to unregister and re-register controls for various reasons. Using regsvr32 gets a little tiresome, particularly if you need to unregister and/or register several controls at once. Wouldn't it be nice to have Register, Unregister and even OLE View in the right mouse click shortcut menu of Windows Explorer? Well, it's easy. Just copy the following registry keys and values into notepad (start with the line REGEDIT4), save it with a .reg extension, and then import the file into your registry (just double click on the .reg file). If you don't like doing that, a slightly longer and less obvious route is to set up the file associations in Windows Explorer (View menu, Folder Options, File Types, New Type etc.)

Determine Windows System32 Directory Containing regsvr32.exe

Note that you should check (and correct if necessary) the path to oleview and regsvr32 first. As with any changes to the registry, backup the registry first and proceed with caution. You should at least check and backup [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.dll] and [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.ocx] if they exist (in RegEdit select the desired key and go Registry menu, Export Registry file).

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.dll]
@="dllfile"
"Content Type"="application/x-msdownload"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.ocx]
@="ocxfile"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\Shell\OLEView]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\Shell\OLEView\command]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\Common\\Tools\\OleView.exe %1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\Shell\Register]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\Shell\Register\command]
@="C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\regsvr32.exe %1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\Shell\Unregister]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\Shell\Unregister\command]
@="C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\regsvr32.exe /u %1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ocxfile\Shell\OLEView]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ocxfile\Shell\OLEView\command]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\Common\\Tools\\OleView.exe %1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ocxfile\Shell\Register]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ocxfile\Shell\Register\command]
@="C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\regsvr32.exe %1"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ocxfile\Shell\Unregister]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ocxfile\Shell\Unregister\command]
@="C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\regsvr32.exe /u %1"

regsvr32.exe help
regsvr32_help

Select .DLL or .OCX and RightClick
regsvr32_rightclick