Turn off taskbar "popups" (not thumbnails)

BFG said:

Change the following key

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\
ExtendedUIHoverTime to a really big time like 65536 and the pop-up will be gone

CAVEAT: if you make it a really big number -- I happened to type in 5000000 -- all/some/many/a few of the popups for the system icon tray stop functioning. I.e., hovering-over and clicking-on the network-connections icon both go dead (double-clicking still works.) Setting ExtendedUIHoverTime to a smaller random number ("5000" or "65536") does not trigger the side effect. No clue why.

PS: thanks for the hover solution. Whenever I upgrade Windows, I seem to spend a lot of time learning how to undo the Microsoft UI changes... be nice if they could publish a consolidated list both of a) the UI changes in a given Windows release and b) how to un-do each of the UI changes in a given Windows release.

Goes some bit, but a popup still comes up (instantly) when I right-click on a firefox button and then do not select anything from the menu.* This popup lists the open firefox windows (basically reproducing the taskbar in vertical, duh...) and doesn't go away until I've selected a different firefox window or have hovered over the menu and then clicked into the window behind it.

*yes I know, there's "no reason" for doing this. I do it when I periodically clean up my browser windows, just right-clicking on them displays them, if I don't need them anymore I can directly click close, if not I go check the next window, and then the popup appears...

Script on AutoHotkey to hide Pop-ups:

Code:

#Persistent
SetTimer HidePopUp, 100
Return

HidePopUp() {
    If WinExist("ahk_class tooltips_class32 ahk_exe explorer.exe") {
        ; ControlGetText popup ; Get text of Pop-up
        WinGetPos x, y, w, h
        ; Get taskbar control area screen coordinate
            ControlGetPos xT, yT, wT, hT, MSTaskListWClass1, ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd
            WinGetPos xw, yw,,, ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd
            xT+=xw, yT+=yw
        ; Pop-up in taskbar control area
        If (x+w//2>xT && x<(xT+wT) && y>yT-h && y+h<yT+hT) {
            WinHide
        }
    }
}