Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

A Few Regedit Examples

Here are some typical regedit tweaks, spelled out for you step by step.

Tip

If you, too, find your pulse racing with the illicit thrill of making tweaks to your system, why stop here? You can find hundreds more RegEdit “recipes” in books, computer magazines, and Web sites (check out, for example, http://www.winguides.com and http://www.jsiinc.com/reghack.htm).

Faster Menus

As you may have noticed, submenus in Windows (like the Control Panel, Connect to, and All Programs submenus in the Start menu) aren’t especially sprightly in Windows XP. In fact, these submenus don’t sprout until your mouse has rested on them for what feels like an eternity.

What Microsoft had in mind was ensuring that you don’t open a submenu accidentally, just by absentmindedly resting your cursor on it. But if you’re a cool, suave, sure-of-yourself customer, there’s no reason you should spend your life waiting for a time delay intended for more clueless people. This next RegEdit trick speeds up the Start menu a lot. You’ll feel like you have a new computer.

• Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER→Control Panel/Desktop.

• Double-click this value on the right side: MenuShowDelay.

• Make this change: Change the number to 0. This number represents the amount of time, in milliseconds, between the instant you move the cursor to a submenu and when Windows finally opens the menu. (The factory setting is 400.)

  Tip

  If you set this to an arbitrarily large value like 30000, you’ll effectively turn off the automatically-opening ...