XRecode is a great audio converter – a freeware program, some time ago. Now XRecode has turned commercial, but I’m sure many people will support it and will keep using it. If you want, you can also try the last version of XRecode as a freeware (2.61). If you happen to use the portable version of XRecode, you might miss the SendTo option, present in the normal, installable version. This option lets you have XRecode inside the SendTo menu, so that, when you right-click on audio files in Windows Explorer and select “Send To – XRecode”, the program opens ready to convert your  files.

If you just create a shortcut to XRecode in the SendTo menu, this shortcut will open the program, but your file will not be loaded. You can solve this by adding a parameter to the target command of your XRecode shortcut. Here is what you should do:

1) Open the SendTo menu (go to Start – Run, and in the dialogue box that appears write “shell:sendto” (without the quotation marks). This will open the SendTo folder, the folder that controls the SendTo context menu.

2) In the SendTo folder create a shortcut to the portable XRedode, and define the target of the shortcut as “C:\Program Files\XRECODE\XRECODE.exe” /sendto [Note that the address on the disk may be different, according to where you have put XRecode]

That’s it! The addition of the /sendto parameter after the address will make XRecode open ready to convert the audio file(s) that you have right-clicked.