Pausing mouse over submenus and folders will not highlight and open

LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, Alaska Icrontian
edited February 2009 in Science & Tech
One of the settings I like in Windows XP is the ability to open Start Menu submenus by hovering the mouse over them. Also, in Windows Explorer, I like to automatically highlight a folder or file by hovering the mouse over it.

Neither of those options are working on one of my computers. The computer is running XP Pro SP3, all updates. I checked the General and View settings under Folder Settings. Unless I'm mistaken, those settings are the same for other Win XP computers I have where the hover features are working correctly.

I also selected "Open submenus when I pause on them with my mouse" in Advanced options, Start Menu properties.

What am I missing. Have I corrupted a registry entry somewhere?



What am I missing?

Comments

  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2009
    Let's add some more information:

    This problem manifested itself a couple weeks ago after I formatted the OS hard drive and did a fresh WinXP installation. That's why I think the problem is probably a Windows setting somewhere. None of the user interface hardware changed after the format and reinstall from what it was before.

    Hardware:

    Mouse: Microsoft "Basic Optical Mouse," three button, which includes the wheel; USB or PS/2 with adapter

    Identified in Device Manager as "HID-compliant Mouse" (shouldn't it be HID-compliant Wheel Mouse?)

    Troubleshooting steps I've taken that did not change anything:

    - swapped the mouse for another known, working mouse of the same configuration, actually an identical mouse

    - checked mouse properties - everything seemed logical

    - checked advanced properties of the Start Menu

    - uninstalled the mouse, let Windows automatically reinstall it

    - ran the mouse in both USB mode and PS/2 mode
  • CallredCallred Maryville, tn
    edited February 2009
    Try going into the registry here: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
    then right click on MenuShowDelay and select Modify: set it 100 or so and back out.

    See if that helps. One interesting aside is that half the machines here at work loved Sp3 and had no issues. And half of them developed small glitches in them. My CEO's machine suddenly had MS Office quit working (text wouldn't type where it was supposed to) until I uninstalled Sp3....
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2009
    OK, that was a partial solution, thank you. Now in Windows Explorer, items in the right pane will highlight by hovering the mouse. Good - back to normal.

    Pausing the mouse over submenu items in the Start Menu will highlight the item but to open the item requires a mouse click.
  • CallredCallred Maryville, tn
    edited February 2009
    I got nothing. I spent some time looking in the registry and frankly you already did all of the things I'd do except possibly load TweakUI for XP and see if you could set it with that. One other thing is pretty exceptional and that's to uninstall Sp3, stay at Sp2 and see what happens. (no, I don't hate Sp3, but I've had it do enough weird things to enough computers that it's become something I try when all else fails.)
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2009
    load TweakUI for XP
    Oh yes, already did that. Sorry, I should've mentioned that in troubleshooting steps as well. I'll check again, maybe there's something I missed, but I don't think so.
  • CallredCallred Maryville, tn
    edited February 2009
    Seriously, if nothing else works, try uninstalling Sp3 and see what happens. Maybe video card drivers? I'm stretching here but I still can't come across anything online that you haven't tried. In fact, if I google the issue, this thread is pretty near the top :)
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2009
    Maybe video card drivers?
    I'll give that a try tonight after work.
    if I google the issue, this thread is pretty near the top
    Yes, that was my observation as well. In fact, this thread was at the top one time I searched.


    The video card drivers would be a logical check. It's a complex system, the video drivers being installed for 4 GPUs running simultaneously - 4 X [EMAIL="Folding@Home"]Folding@Home[/EMAIL] GPU2 clients.
  • CallredCallred Maryville, tn
    edited February 2009
    Leonardo wrote:
    I'll give that a try tonight after work.Yes, that was my observation as well. In fact, this thread was at the top one time I searched.
    If you figure it out, then your thread would be the definitive answer on the Net. :wink:
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2009
    It wouldn't be the first time Icrontic was ahead of the pack!
  • ColoradoColorado
    edited February 2009
    I use Tuneup Utilities instead of TweakUI and it fixed the popup instantly. Because it did it in the program, I don't know how, but maybe not in the registry (didn't require a reboot). It did have me set th the show delay however. I am having a separate problem updating my video driver. Since that is still glitched, the driver must not have anything to do with it either.
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