Is it possible to have "sticky" fly-out menus in Windows?

Factual Questions
1

Let’s say you click on the Start button, then Programs, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Tools, Scan…

At each step you have to keep your mouse over the current fly-out menu. If you don’t, it collapses and you have to start over. Is there a setting that allows you to “pin” the current menu so that it doesn’t collapse?

2

There’s a little trick you can do in RegEdit that will essentially force you to click on sub-menus to open them, and that will effectively not close if you hover over another sub-menu.

  1. Open RegEdit (start->run->regedit)
  2. Drill down to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
  3. Make sure the “desktop” keyset is highlighted
  4. In the right-hand pane will be a key entry called MenuShowDelay and will likely have a value of 400 (default).
  5. Right-click on this key and select “Modify”
  6. Change the Value Data to 65535 and click “Okay”
  7. Close RegEdit

You will have to reboot for the changes to take effect. What you have essentially done is change the length of time Windows waits while you hover over a sub-menu before the menu flies open to about 65 seconds. For all intents and purposes this means you will have to click to open a sub-menu, and hovering over another sub-menu while one is already open will not open the new one and close the old one (unless you hover for more than a minute).

3

What specifically are you trying to accomplish here? (What’s the scenario that’s prompting you to ask this question?)

4

You can also open “My Computer” then navigate to “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs”. This will show you everything in the menu in list and folder style. You can leave the folder open as long as you wish.

5

Thanks Mindfield, that worked.

Hunter… I sometimes drill down several layers deep in the sub-menus, and then get clumsy with the mouse causing everything to disappear.

6

Gotcha. Another possibility is to use the Windows key and arrow keys on your keyboard.

7

This won’t work if there are multiple user accounts set up. Unless programs have been specifically installed for All Users (or if this is how it installs by default), then installed programs will only appear under the user account that installed them. In that case you will have to hunt for it through the user directories.

You can, however, move all links from one user account’s Start Menu folder into the All Users start menu folder to consolidate them.

Glad it worked out, K364.