Excel open option missing from Context Menu

Question

Whenever I select multiple Excel (2010) files the right mouseclick option 'open' disappears. When I select just one or a few files there is no problem, but from 15 or more files I can't open them at once anymore.

In the picture you'll see there is no 'open' option. Usually this option is above 7-Zip along with 'New' and 'Print'

excel open option missing

Can anyone tell me why this is happening and how I can change this?

Thanks.

• user3463: Can you repeat this behaviour with Word? I suspect this is to prevent opening too many files accidentally. What happens when you Shift-Right-click?

Answer 1

Windows removes certain options from the context menu when more than 15 items are selected. According to this Microsoft KB article, that's by design, to prevent accidentally performing those actions on a large number of files.

You can, however, change that limit in the registry. From that same KB article:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
Name : MultipleInvokePromptMinimum
Type : DWORD
Default : 15 (decimal)

Setting the value to 16 or higher effectively removes the limit.