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Windows Me - Speed up the start menu considerably

November 25, 2013
Updated: April 14, 2022
Quick overview:

Navigation in the start menu is sluggish and inefficient because you have to wait a very long time for an entry to open. This prevents you from working quickly, which is why I recommend increasing the speed a little. And this is how it works:

1. Open the Windows Registry Editor by clicking in the start menu on Execute and enter regedit there.

2. Navigate through the keys HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop and double-click in the right-hand pane on MenuShowDelay. Now set this value to a lower number between 0 and 65000 - These digits represent the waiting times in milliseconds. So if you set 100, it will take 100 milliseconds for the next entry to open, which is four times faster than the default setting. The value 0 means that there are no delays.

If the value MenuShowDelay is not in the right half of the window, you must create it yourself. To do this, go to New/string and baptize it in the above name.

3. After a restart at the latest, the changes have been fully applied and you can navigate through your start menu in a flash.

NOTE FOR NEW PUBLICATION: This article was produced by Sandro Villinger and comes from the Windows Tweaks archive, which has been built up since the late 1990s.

Founded Windows Tweaks as a teenager in the 90s. His helpful PC tricks made it Germany's most visited Windows site (at the time Sandro looked like this). He then went on to write elsewhere, for example for PC-Praxis, Computer Bild and PCWorld in the USA. Microsoft also poached him from us. Now Sandro is back, finally sharing his tweaks here again. For a stress-free digital everyday life. You can reach Sandro via e-mail.

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