Right click menu in Explorer (& desktop) missing new "Microsoft Office Word document".

After many hours of research, installs, uninstalls, reinstalls, repairs, reregistering word etc. etc. I was able to add the Word 97 and 2003 right click menu option by just adding a NullFile string to the “Word.Document.8” key under the .doc key in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.doc but it would not do anything under the .docx key.

I wanted the 2010 docx of office 2010 functionality.

I have found out what I had to do to get back the Right-click New Microsoft Word Document function of Office 2010 in Windows Explorer and on the Desktop.

I found that four keys were missing in the registry in comparison with my other computer’s installation of Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010.

Remember to back up the .docx key by exporting it to a safe folder so that you could have it if necessary.

I opened the registry to – HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.docx

Steps creating keys are done on the left window pane in the registry.

1)     Below the .docx key I create the first key that was missing by right clicking on the “.docx” key then go down to New, then left click on Key and name it “OpenWithList” without the quotes.

Inside of that key is the automatically created String Value (default)  REG_SZ   (value not set)

2)     Inside of the “OpenWithList” create the second key. Right click on the “OpenWithList” key then go down to New, then left click on Key and name this new key “WordPad.exe” without the quotes.

Inside of that key is the automatically created String Value (default)  REG_SZ   (value not set)

3)     Right click on the “.docx” key then go down to New, then left click on Key to create the third key and name it “Word.Document.12” without the quotes.

Inside of that key is the automatically created String Value (default)  REG_SZ   (value not set)

4)     Right click on the “Word.Document.12” key then go down to New, then left click on Key to create the fourth key and name it “ShellNew” without the quotes.

Inside of that key is the automatically created String Value (default)  REG_SZ   (value not set)

The next thing to do is to create a string value newly created “ShellNew” key but this is done in the window on the right side.

5)     Left click on ShellNew in the left window to select the key. Now in the window on the right side; Right click in the empty space go to New then select String Value. Name the new string “NullFile” without the quotes, Type is REG_SZ Leave the data empty.

6)     Lastly, in the left window left click on key .docx, In the right side window make sure that the data of the (Default) string is Word.Document.12 – To change it, doubleclick on the string named (Default) , a window will open up and you change the data value to Word.Document.12 (My data value was “docx_auto_file”)

You are done. Close the registry.  Test the right click context menu now.

I hope that this will help some people.