Eliminate yellow/black help bubbles?

[Rick C.]

I'm gradually coming to understand that applications can utilize help
bubbles available through the Win2000 interface so that when you pass
the mouse pointer over an area in the app, a help bubble appears (black
border, yellow background, black text). Sometimes these get in the way.
Is there a way to turn this feature off?

 

[Jerold Schulman]

I'm gradually coming to understand that applications can utilize help
bubbles available through the Win2000 interface so that when you pass
the mouse pointer over an area in the app, a help bubble appears (black
border, yellow background, black text). Sometimes these get in the way.
Is there a way to turn this feature off?

Try tip 4669 in the 'Tips & Tricks' at http://www.jsiinc.com

Jerold Schulman
Windows: General MVP
JSI, Inc.
http://www.jsiinc.com

 

[Rick Charnes]

Thanks for this tip. I followed the procedure and for some reason it
doesn't work. Under the key Advanced I now have a value
EnableBalloonTips with data = 0. The JSI tip suggests data = "NO" but
looking elsewhere on the web I see it should be REG_DWORD and data = 0,
but I tried both and neither works. Just has no effect at all. The
balloon tips are all there.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

[David Robbins]

you may be trying to get rid of the wrong things. the balloon tips i
believe this works on are the ones that come up from the systray with
messages like 'network cable disconnected', 'new updates available', and
that kind of thing. when you move your mouse over a control and it puts up
a small help message about that control that is called a 'tool tip'. there
is a tip to turn them off in windows xp on the jsi site but i don't see one
for win2k in a quick search. you may also find that different apps turn
them on or off themselves, and some apps give you a setup option to turn
them off for that app.

 

[Carrie Garth \(MVP\)]

Hi Rick,

For Windows 2000 search Windows 2000 Help for "To show pop-up descriptions for folder
and desktop items", and follow the steps except in step 3., uncheck the checkbox..

For "an area in the app [where] a help bubble appears" try searching the "app" help
for words such as:

Tool Tip
Tooltip
Screen Tip
ScreenTip
Popup
Pop-up

--
Carrie Garth, Microsoft MVP for Windows 2000
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- c x g

: "Rick C." <blue--nospam--.heron3 AT verizon DOT net>
: Wrote in message : Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 11:13 PM
: I'm gradually coming to understand that applications can utilize help
: bubbles available through the Win2000 interface so that when you pass
: the mouse pointer over an area in the app, a help bubble appears (black
: border, yellow background, black text). Sometimes these get in the way.
: Is there a way to turn this feature off?

 

[Rick Charnes]

Thanks. Changing this setting doesn't do what I want. Oh, I'll come
clean: when I'm in IE 6 and composing a new message in Hotmail, and the
mouse pointer is in the message body area, I want to get rid of the dang
"Type Message Text" text popup/tooltip. No one at the IE newsgroup
answered me, so I figured it's a Win2000 thing...

 

[Carrie Garth \(MVP\)]

Hi Rick,

Hmmm... Hotmail. Not familiar with its use and since it is an external Web Page
there might not be anything you can do to get rid of that particular popup that would
not adversely affect the use of other necessary Hotmail Web Page functions. Perhaps
there is a support forum for Hotmail where you could post this question (or try
microsoft.public.msn.discussion).

--
Carrie Garth, Microsoft MVP for Windows 2000
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- c x g

: "Rick Charnes" <rick--nospam.charnes AT thehartford DOT com>
: Wrote in message : Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 10:33 AM
: Thanks. Changing this setting doesn't do what I want. Oh, I'll come
: clean: when I'm in IE 6 and composing a new message in Hotmail, and the
: mouse pointer is in the message body area, I want to get rid of the dang
: "Type Message Text" text popup/tooltip. No one at the IE newsgroup
: answered me, so I figured it's a Win2000 thing...

: > "Carrie Garth (MVP)"
: > Wote in message : > Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 7:16 AM
: > Hi Rick,
: >
: > For Windows 2000 search Windows 2000 Help for "To show pop-up descriptions for
: > folder and desktop items", and follow the steps except in step 3., uncheck the
: > checkbox..
: >
: > For "an area in the app [where] a help bubble appears" try searching the "app"
: > help for words such as:
: >
: > Tool Tip
: > Tooltip
: > Screen Tip
: > ScreenTip
: > Popup
: > Pop-up