Windows XP Helpful Hint o’ the Day

When you go to the Start menu in XP, it’s very diligent about popping up the submenus when you just run a mouse over them. Which, for me, often meant that a submenu would pop up and obscure the menu item I was looking for, making me click on something else or wait for it to subside or do some other action to get rid of.

Now there’s an answer:

1. Right-click on the Start button. Choose Properties. Choose the Start Menu tab, and Customize, then choose the Advanced tab.
2. Turn off the Start menu setting “Open submenus when I pause on them with my mouse.”

3. Click OK.

It does mean you’ll need to click on Start menu entries to get them to open up, but that’s hardly unusual behavior, and a lot less likely (for me, at least) to end up with delays and the wrong things getting opened. Woo-hoo!