The New submenu is a distinct context menu surface with its own registration mechanism. Windows builds it by looking for a `ShellNew` subkey attached to a file extension, or to the program identifier a file extension maps to. When it finds one, it offers that document type in the submenu, using the registration to determine how a new file of that type should be created — from a template file, from a null file, or from a command.
That structure has two implications worth understanding before changing anything. First, the registration is a child of the file-type information, not a separate thing sitting alongside it. Deleting carelessly at the wrong level takes the association with it. That is exactly what happens when people follow instructions to "delete the ShellNew key" and remove the parent instead: the extension no longer maps to a program, and double-clicking the file stops working. Recovering from that means reinstalling the application or rebuilding the association by hand.
Second, the same document type can be registered in more than one place — directly on the extension, or on the program identifier the extension resolves to, or both. Remove one and the entry can persist because the other still applies. This is a frequent source of the "I deleted it and it is still there" experience with New-menu entries specifically.
ContextCleaner handles both by locating every registration that contributes to the submenu and disabling by rename rather than deletion. The `ShellNew` key is renamed to an inactive variant. The shell looks for the exact name and does not find it, so the entry vanishes from the submenu. Everything else — the extension mapping, the default program, the icon, the file type description — is structurally untouched, because none of it was modified. Re-enabling renames the key back to its original name and the entry returns with its original creation behaviour intact.
Some entries, particularly those from office suites installed for all users, are registered machine-wide and need administrator approval to change. ContextCleaner collects all machine-wide operations from a single apply into one elevated batch, so pruning several such entries asks for approval once. If Windows refuses a specific entry, the result reports how many were refused rather than claiming the apply fully succeeded.
