Setting to Speed Up TaskBar ToolTip Display?

Hi,

There is no separate registry tweak to make the tooltips appear faster. You can modify the values in mousehovertime in registry editor and check
if the tooltips appear faster.

Try these steps:

1. Go start and type in regedit in the search box and press enter.
2. Navigate to the location below:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse
3. In the right pane, right click MouseHoverTime and click on Modify.
4. Type in a number between 0 to 4000 and click ok.

The lower the number, the faster the response time. If you use an entry of 0, there is no delay before the tooltip opens.

5. Close registry editor.
6. Restart the computer.

IMPORTANT: This method contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry
incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can
restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following link. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Back-up-the-registry

You may refer this link for information about tooltips in Windows:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb760250(VS.85).aspx

Regards,
Afzal-Microsoft Support.
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Thank you for responding, Afzal. 

Unfortunately, it doesn't change the time delay in displaying the tooltips under the Live Preview Thumbnails one bit.  They still take a full second to appear, implying they're running on a separate time value, as the default MouseHoverTime is only 0.4 seconds.

Did you actually try what you suggested before responding?  It simply doesn't work.

I have no problem with editing the registry, and I've actually programmed applications with ToolTips, so I understand how they work pretty well.

Also, changing the nature of the mouse hover system-wide might not be a preferable workaround even if it did help in this case.  For example, it shortens the time that the Start Menu waits before automatically following an entry (such as All Programs) being hovered-over.  I'm not sure that's an advantage.

Please consider this a request to make the delay time JUST FOR THE LIVE PREVIEW THUMBNAIL TOOLTIPS configurable (or to expose the actual configuration), so that the UI is more responsive per my original post above.

-Noel

Did you ever find out how to do this? Because the taskbar buttons are so indistinguishable, I have to rely on the tooltip to prevent me from opening Wordpad when what I wanted was Event Viewer or Calculator. That one-second delay is very frustrating.

Noel [another one...]

I think I have found the relevant information, you need to alter the tooltip delay time parameter, see TTDT_INITIAL on http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb760404(v=vs.85).aspx.

Perhaps now someone can post step by step how to do it, for non-geeks?