This blog post explains how to disable context menu in Start Menu using Intune. The right-click context menus on Windows 11 provide quick, useful actions for managing apps and shortcuts in the Start Menu. It simplifies tasks like pinning, uninstalling, or accessing advanced options without needing to navigate deeper into settings.
If your organization has deployed mandatory apps from the Microsoft Store, it’s essential to ensure users cannot uninstall them on their own. The context menu in the Start Menu includes an uninstallation option for apps, which could be misused to remove essential system applications. To prevent this, you can disable the context menus in the Windows 11 Start Menu, ensuring these options are inaccessible through right-clicking on items.
The image below illustrates a context menu that appears in the Start menu when you right-click on an app. It provides several options, including the ability to uninstall the app.
Disabling right-click context menus in the Start menu can be achieved through various methods, such as Group Policy, OMA-URI, command prompt, PowerShell, or Registry edits. I will cover these alternate methods in detail in another guide and link it over here later. This guide only focuses on using the Settings Catalog in Intune to prevent context menus from being invoked in the Start Menu. This policy can be applied to both Windows 10/11 devices or users.
Intune Policy to Disable Right-click Context Menu In Start Menu
Alright, let’s create an Intune policy that disables the context menus in the start menu. First, sign in to the Intune admin center. Go to Devices > Windows > Configuration > Create > New Policy. Choose Windows 10 and later as Platform and Settings Catalog as Profile Type. On the Basics tab of the Create Profile window, specify the name of the profile as “Disable Context Menus in the Start Menu”. You may add a brief description about the profile. Click Next to continue.
In the Settings Picker, search for “disable context menus“. From the results, select the category named ‘Start.’ Here you’ll find two settings to choose from:
- Disable Context Menus: Choose this setting to disable the context menus in the start menu for devices (device groups). Do remember that settings applied to device groups always go with the device, not the user.
- Disable Context Menus (User): Select this setting to disable the right-click context menus for users (user groups). Policy settings applied to user groups always go with the user, and go with the user when signed in to their many devices.
In the below example, I have selected the policy setting “Disable Context Menus (User)“. Close the settings picker.
For the policy setting Disable Context Menus (User), slide the toggle to the right to enable this setting. Click Next.
In the scope tags section, you specify scope tags. Specifying scope tags is optional, and you may skip this step. Click Next.
In the Assignments window, select the Entra user groups to which you want to assign the policy. I recommend deploying the profile to a few test user groups first and then expanding it to more users if the testing is successful. Select Next.
On the Review + Create page, review all the policy settings that you have configured so far and select Create. A new policy is created, and you can find it under the list of Configuration Profiles.
Update Intune Policies
To speed up the policy assignments, you can manually sync Intune policies using different methods on your Windows computers, including PowerShell. The sync action will force devices to immediately check-in with Intune and retrieve the latest policies.
Monitor Disable Context Menu Policy Assignments
To monitor the disable context menu policy assignments in Intune, go to Devices > Windows > Configuration and here select the Disable context menus in start menu profile. On the Policy overview page, check the device and user check-in status. Here you will find the number of devices or users on which the policy has been applied successfully. The view report button lets you see the names of devices or users for which the policy deployments have been successful.
From the screenshot below, we see that policy assignments are successful and there are no errors observed. In some cases, the policy may fail to apply to certain users. To resolve these issues, you will need to troubleshoot the issue by reviewing Intune logs on Windows computers. These are essential IME logs that are useful for troubleshooting app and policy assignments failures on remote computers.
End-user Experience
To verify if the context menus are removed in the start menu for users, sign in to Windows 11 client. Click on Start and select All to view the apps and other items. Right-click on any installed app, and you will notice that no context menu appears.
The comparison image below illustrates two scenarios: on the left, the context menu displayed when right-clicking an app in the Start Menu; on the right, the successful disabling of context menus for users through an Intune policy.
I hope this guide has assisted you in disabling context menus in the Start Menu on Windows 10/11 using Intune policy. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to share them in the comments below.
Read Next
Take a look at some useful guides on managing Windows settings via Intune
