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DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A
December 6, 2009
Q.
When I move my cursor over a list of files,
there is a very annoying little box that
pops up and covers the names in the list. Is
there a way to turn this off?
A.
What you are referring to has
varying names depending on where it is being
observed but these are generally referred to
as "Tool Tips", "Balloon help", etc.
When you
hover your cursor over a listing in the
Start Menu, on a desktop icon, or any icon
or file or folder name in Explorer there is
a little pop up message. This will display a
message the programmer wrote or if there is
no message then the location of the item is
displayed.
This is a
real nice touch for the novice, but quickly
becomes just another annoyance to the more
advanced user. So, fortunately, there is a
way to disable this "feature". It is done
differently in different locations.
Disabling
this Balloon help in Windows Explorer or on
the desktop icons is the easiest so I'll
cover that first. Open (MY) Computer and in
the menu click on Tools. If there is no menu
displayed, press the ALT to show the menu.
After tools has been selected, click on
Folder Options then the View tab. Scroll
down until you find "Show pop-up
descriptions for folder and desktop icons",
and uncheck it. Click OK, and this annoyance
will be eliminated. Also in this list is the
option to "Always show menus" which will
eliminate the need to press the ALT key to
show the menu.
The above
does not have an effect on items in the
Start menu. Disabling these requires a
registry tweak. As always, a warning is
appropriate here. When modifying the
registry use care so as to not make a change
that could cause Windows to stop working.
Here are the steps to disable the balloon
help in the start menu.
Click on
Start or the Windows orb and select run. By
default, the Run command will not appear in
the start menu, so for those that have not
already turned it on, here's how to do that.
Right click a blank spot on the taskbar and
select Properties. Click the Start menu tab,
the Customize button and in XP only the
Advanced tab. Now scroll down to the Run
command and check the box in front of it.
Click OK and OK and the Run command will now
be displayed in the Start menu.
Click on
Run and enter regedit in the box and click
OK. When the registry editor opens navigate
through HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software,
Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Explorer
and Advanced. In the right pane, locate and
right click on the item "ShowInfoTip" and
select Modify. Set the value to 0 to disable
the Balloon help feature or 1 to enable it.
Exit the Registry editor and the Balloon
help will no longer cause you irritation.
As is my
norm, I have written a little applet that
will allow making this registry modification
for you safely. It is called "DisableBalloonHelp.exe"
and can be downloaded from the Download
section of this site or by clicking
HERE.
This applet allows turning the Balloon Help
feature on or off. |
