Shell Tools is a collection of Windows enhancements that add five functions to the right-click context menu that allow you to do the following: add notes to any file, right click to toggle view hidden files on/off, copy URLs from IE bookmarks, load or install fonts, and register/unregister COM servers for DLL, OCX, and EXE files on demand. You can choose to enable any or all of these modules on your system as you wish.

I know a lot of readers share my love of Windows shell extensions, especially those that add cool functions to the right-click context menu. Shell Tools is a very interesting collection in its sheer originality – the functions provided are none of the typical context menu additions that we see frequently. Here’s a description of each of the available modules.

• Anyfile: right-click on any file in order to create and edit notes that are associated with the file. These will be saved in a text file placed in the same directory as the original file, and this file will have the same name as the original file (e.g. for “iTunesSetup.exe” the note will be saved in “iTunesSetup.txt”). What’s interesting is that you can configure the module to create a hidden text file by default so that, if you do not have “view hidden files” enabled in your folders you do not have to see the proliferation of these files as you set about creating notes (you can still access the note by selecting the original file and right-clicking filenote in the context menu). There is no support for creating folder-related notes.
• Folderbackground: with this module, a “show hidden files” entry is installed in your context menu that can quickly toggle showing/hiding hidden files in Windows’ folder views. Seems like the perfect companion to the Anyfile module (above), or if you generally like your hidden files not to be visible but would like to be able to quickly toggle them on and off on occasion.

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