Disappearing Start Menu

[Larry]

When I click on Start, the menu appears for about a second, then disappears.
I click on Start a second time, and the start menu displays and stays. It
always stays the second time. Sometimes it stays the first time, maybe 1 out
of 4 or 5. Any ideas? Should I do a repair install of XP? Or is that brain
surgery for a headache? Has anyone else seen this behavior, and what are
your recommendations?
Thanks

 

[jameshanley39]

if the taskbar is disappearing, maybe your taskbar is on autohide.

right click start, click properties, click taskbar, uncheck 'autohide
taskbar'

 

[Larry]

No, not the taskbar, it's the start menu that's disappearing.

 

[S.Sengupta]

you may change the speed of the Start Menu.

Start>Run>regedit>ok
Navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \
Name: MenuShowDelay
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 400 (0 is the fastest, 400 is default. These are all in
miliseconds)
Log off, or restart Windows for the changes to take effect.

regards,
ssg MS-MVP

 

[Larry]

My data value is 150 (not 400). I'm not sure what that means, should I
increase that or decrease that?

 

[Larry]

Well, that doesn't seem to be it. I've changed the registry entry of
MenuShowDelay from its original value of 150 to 400 and then to 50. Neither
of those changes had any affect on the behavior of the start menu. Anybody
got any other suggestions?

 

[Larry]

Well, after way too much screwing around, I seem to have fixed my problem. I
switched the start menu to the "Classic Start Menu" and the disappearing
menu behavior seems to have ended. I'm not sure that it's fixed forever, but
it's fixed for now. I guess that's Windows. Right?