How do I get the classic full right-click menu back on Windows 11 25H2, and cleanly undo it later? Workaround

The key lives in your own user hive, which is what makes it low risk — nothing machine-wide changes and other accounts on the same PC are unaffected.

Apply, in a normal command prompt:

reg add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve

That creates the CLSID key with an InprocServer32 subkey whose (Default) value is present but empty. The empty value is the entire trick — if (Default) is simply unset rather than set-to-empty, nothing happens and you'll swear the key doesn't work.

Then restart the shell so it re-reads:

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start explorer

Revert:

reg delete "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}" /f

…and restart Explorer again. Two commands each way, both per-user, both phone-friendly.

Heads up before you bother: this got removed in 24H2. The key does nothing on current builds.

Zero-registry answer, and the one I'd actually deploy to family: hold Shift while right-clicking, or press Shift+F10 with something selected. You get the full menu immediately.

It's an extra key instead of an extra click, and there is nothing to undo when something behaves strangely in six months. For machines you support remotely and can't easily poke at, that trade is worth a lot more than it looks on paper — the failure mode of a habit is "they forget", and the failure mode of a registry hack is a phone call where you're dictating a GUID.

There are third-party shell customisers and alternative file managers that will give you a normal menu without registry surgery, and some of them are genuinely nice.

I'd still be conservative about what you install into explorer.exe on machines you support at a distance. Anything that loads into the shell can also take the shell down with it, and "my desktop keeps flickering and I can't open anything" is a far worse support call than "the menu has two steps". For relatives: Shift first, registry key second, extra software a distant third.

One thing to know before you standardise on the hack. The reported plan for the redesigned menu explicitly includes built-in controls to show, hide and reorder entries, with the stated intent of making registry edits unnecessary for this.

That has not shipped, it isn't in an Insider build as far as anyone has demonstrated, and what's circulating is coverage of a private demo rather than a changelog entry — so don't wait for it. But it does mean the hack has a shelf life, and the day it stops being needed nothing will announce itself. Keep your revert command somewhere you'll find it.

Small operational thing: export the CLSID branch before you change anything (regedit, right-click the key, Export) so a revert is a double-click even if you fat-finger the delete command later.

And re-check after the next feature update. If a future build ignores the key, the symptom is simply that the menu is back to two steps — no error, no log entry, nothing to alert you. If someone rings you saying "the menu changed again", that's what it is.