How can I add Windows right click context menu items?

Question

I am trying to add new actions to the right click context menu when you select a file or many files. I am writing a program in C++ which contains the functionality that I want to trigger.

As far as I know I have to add new entries to the registers when installing my program and also, I have to use COM(here I got completely lost).

Is there a straightforward way of doing this?

Answer 1

As already suggested by @Igor Tandetnik you can do almost everything you want with Registry entries.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc144169.aspx