"Open Windows Terminal here"/"Open in Windows Terminal" not showing up with Shift+Right-click on folder background

[Andrew-J-Larson]

Windows Terminal version (or Windows build number)

10.0.19041.1052, 1.8.1521.0

Other Software

No response

Steps to reproduce

1. Go to any directory in your user folder (for me I went to my Downloads folder)
2. Shift + Right-click any empty space in the background of the folder.

Expected Behavior

There should be a context menu item for "Open Windows Terminal here"/"Open in Windows Terminal".

Actual Behavior

There is no context menu item for Windows Terminal.

Note: Doing this on a folder icon/item still works.

[zadjii-msft]

Hmm. I'd suspect that this is due to the hack we're doing to get the background entry working in the first place.

I unfortunately can't repro this on the Win11 build I'm on - it's very possible that this is already fixed 😜

[DHowett]

Does your Downloads folder happen to be a "library" folder that is redirected to OneDrive, or showing a view over multiple folders?

[zadjii-msft]

i.e. "Downloads", "Photos", "Videos", etc. Those ones are "Libraries"

[Andrew-J-Larson]

I don't have OneDrive on or logged in, so I would assume not? I can try a different folder to be sure though.

[Andrew-J-Larson]

Yep, even if that was the case, I tried a root folder (non library), still not getting the background right-click working (with or without holding shift too)

[zadjii-msft]

Wait hold on, just to be very specific - by

I tried a root folder (non library)

do you mean the root of a drive, like C:\?

I'm thinking of #10421 and #6654

[Andrew-J-Larson]

A folder within the root, e.g. C:\Intel\

[zadjii-msft]

weird okay. @lhecker was seeing this too, so I'm gonna tag him in.

[valerionew]

Hey! I came here to say i have the same issue.
I'm on 1.10.2383.0 on windows 21H1 build 19043.1237, and i'm not able to get Windows Terminal in the context menu at all.

[nanoric]

I'm facing the same issue, I have two computers, both WinServer2022, both installed via Install-AppxPackage with the same binary.
At first, both have no context menu.
But about an hour later, one computer has "Open In Windows Terminal Preview", another one still has no.
Is it downloading someting or checking something in background?

[zadjii-msft]

Is it downloading someting or checking something in background?

It's certainly not downloading anything. I'm under the impression that explorer.exe caches the results of what context menu entries exist, so you may need to reboot (or manually taskkill /f /im explorer.exe & explorer.exe) to get explorer to reload the new entries.

[zadjii-msft]

We suspect this may have gotten better with #14048 and #14211, in v1.15.2874. Then again, we are still seeing some reports of this in #14185. If this isn't happening any more for folks in this thread, we may want to close in favor of the new thread, to track any remaining issues with the new implementation. Sound good/?

[ghost]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has been marked as requiring author feedback but has not had any activity for 4 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs within 3 days of this comment.

[valerionew]

@zadjii-msft is there an update procedure? I'm at v1.15.2874.0 from the store but still nothing in the context menu

[ghost]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has been marked as requiring author feedback but has not had any activity for 4 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs within 3 days of this comment.

[zadjii-msft]

(sorry, holidays, still haven't caught up)

is there an update procedure? I'm at v1.15.2874.0 from the store but still nothing in the context menu

v1.15.2874.0 is already the latest version that should have the aformentioned fixes in it, so if it's still not working, then there's something else busted.

A thought from another thread was that this might be locale based? And only an issue for certain language-locale pairs, so that might be relevant to share.

[TechInterMezzo]

A thought from another thread was that this might be locale based?

I am still having this problem. My Windows 10 is set to German. I have no idea what to try anymore. The preview version also didn't fix that.

[t-mart]

Came here from Google searching.

Also, I installed from the store (the currently recommended installation method). I thought it'd ship with this context menu feature, but it does not seem to.

In fact, what I was misremembering after reinstalling Windows was that, previously, I was using scoop to install, which does give you the option add this context menu. And, note that scoop is recognized as an installation method by this project.

• So, my easy advice is to uninstall your Microsoft Store installation and instead scoop install windows-terminal. Then, you can run the install-context.reg file shipped in the application directory. (Just tested this, it works!)

• If you insist on not swallowing the scoop pill, you may be inspired by the .reg scripts that scoop uses. They are version-controlled here, but note that you will need to fill in the placeholder values with your path to windows terminal. In other words, simply running these scripts as-is will not work.

  Here's what my filled-in ones look like, but again, you will have to edit accordingly.

  Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
  
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\Background\shell\Windows Terminal]
  @="Open in Windows &Terminal"
  "Icon"="C:\\Users\\tim\\scoop\\apps\\windows-terminal\\current\\wt.exe"
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\Background\shell\Windows Terminal\command]
  @="\"C:\\Users\\tim\\scoop\\apps\\windows-terminal\\current\\wt.exe\" -d ."
  
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\Windows Terminal]
  @="Open in Windows &Terminal"
  "Icon"="C:\\Users\\tim\\scoop\\apps\\windows-terminal\\current\\wt.exe"
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\Windows Terminal\command]
  @="\"C:\\Users\\tim\\scoop\\apps\\windows-terminal\\current\\wt.exe\" -d ."

[u01jmg3]

Thanks @t-mart

Small update needed to the Scoop command:

scoop bucket add extras
scoop install extras/windows-terminal

[SkewelVsAll]

Came here from Google searching.

Also, I installed from the store (the currently recommended installation method). I thought it'd ship with this context menu feature, but it does not seem to.

In fact, what I was misremembering after reinstalling Windows was that, previously, I was using scoop to install, which does give you the option add this context menu. And, note that scoop is recognized as an installation method by this project.

* So, my easy advice is to uninstall your Microsoft Store installation and instead [scoop install windows-terminal](https://scoop.sh/#/apps?q=windows-terminal). Then, you can run the `install-context.reg` file shipped in the application directory. (Just tested this, it works!)

* If you insist on not swallowing the scoop pill, you may be inspired by the `.reg` scripts that scoop uses. [They are version-controlled here](https://github.com/ScoopInstaller/Extras/tree/master/scripts/windows-terminal), but note that you will need to fill in the placeholder values with your path to windows terminal. **In other words, simply running these scripts as-is will not work**.
  Here's what my filled-in ones look like, but again, you will have to edit accordingly.
  ```reg
  Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
  
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\Background\shell\Windows Terminal]
  @="Open in Windows &Terminal"
  "Icon"="C:\\Users\\tim\\scoop\\apps\\windows-terminal\\current\\wt.exe"
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\Background\shell\Windows Terminal\command]
  @="\"C:\\Users\\tim\\scoop\\apps\\windows-terminal\\current\\wt.exe\" -d ."
  
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\Windows Terminal]
  @="Open in Windows &Terminal"
  "Icon"="C:\\Users\\tim\\scoop\\apps\\windows-terminal\\current\\wt.exe"
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\Windows Terminal\command]
  @="\"C:\\Users\\tim\\scoop\\apps\\windows-terminal\\current\\wt.exe\" -d ."
  ```

What do I have to change if I want this .reg file to work with the Microsoft Store version of Windows Terminal?

[t-mart]

What do I have to change if I want this .reg file to work with the Microsoft Store version of Windows Terminal?

The paths.

[SkewelVsAll]

What do I have to change if I want this .reg file to work with the Microsoft Store version of Windows Terminal?

The paths.

If I remember correctly, I don't think Windows lets you use the path of Windows Terminal downloaded from the Store.

I had tried to add a context menu entry for the Terminal via Winaero Tweaker but Windows didn't let Winaero Tweaker access the wt.exe executable saying that access is denied.

[thexmanxyz]

@SkewelVsAll, @t-mart

To those it may concern. The above mentioned shell integration "works somehow" but it does not really act for folders in the way it should. Not sure how it is done with the the scoop shell integration but for me the command does not look right nor act in the expected way.

For the folder integration you can't use . as path. That does not make sense - it makes sense for background selections because you want to select the current folder but not for a specific folder selection. Hence you should use %1 instead of . which will guarantee that the selected path will be passed when starting Windows Terminal.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\Windows Terminal]
@="Open in Windows &Terminal"
"Icon"="C:\\Users\\xxx\\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\WindowsApps\\wt.ico"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Directory\shell\Windows Terminal\command]
@="\"C:\\Users\\xxx\\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\WindowsApps\\wt.exe\" -d \"%1\""