ToolTipFixer Home

Added by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi, last edited by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi on Dec 24, 2007  (view change)

NeoSmart Technologies' ToolTipFixer

ToolTipFixer is a "patch" of sorts by NeoSmart Technologies created to permenantly fix one of Windows' most annoying & oldest bugs to date. The "hidden tooltip" bug has been around since the days of Windows 95, and became progressively worse with each Windows Upgrade – until Windows Vista, where it only appears from time to time; but it is still there nevertheless. If you are experiencing tooltips hidden behind the taskbar, then this is for you.

If your tooltips are appearing the toolbar, then ToolTipFixer is what you need.

The Bug…

They say a picture is worth a thousand words - but if the first picture is worth a thousand, then the second is priceless:

With NST ToolTipFixer installed:

As you can see – no bug! Best of all, this patch (unlike some of other "fixes" floating around the web) really works, only needs to be installed/run once (whereas other patches have you running it every time you experience this problem), never gets in your way, can be safely & easily uninstalled, and best of all, it's free.

How this is different from other solutions

Other solutions floating around the net all have a couple (or more) drawbacks, here's how TTF is different:

  • Set it and forget it. No need to keep running a program every time you experience this bug.
  • Does one thing only – and does it right. Don't worry about unneeded bloat and useless features.
  • It's free!

What Microsoft has to Say

This bug has been around since the very first day Microsoft invented "the shell" with explorer.exe, the taskbar, and the concept of a tooltip - with Windows 95. In 2006, Microsoft finally admitted that this bug exists in Windows XP... But their "solution"?

To resolve this issue, use one of the following methods:
• Log off and then log back on to the current account.
• Restart your computer.

Gee! How helpful!

Testimonials

I just wanted to say thanks for the ToolTipFixer. It is AMAZING. Something so simple (and stupid) has bugged me for years and years. It was so random with no rhyme or reason, it drove me crazy.

—J. Whitworth

Download

Currently, the latest version of ToolTipFixer is version 1.0.1, and is freely available for download (under 100kb!) at the download page.

Donate

As with all other NeoSmart projects/services, NST ToolTipFixer is 100% absolutely free. If you found this patch that Microsoft refused to bother with all these years to be useful, how about showing a token of your appreciation?

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Comments (36)

 

  1. Sep 27, 2007

    Anonymous says:

    Installed it. Works fine. But it takes up 6K of memory. :D\\

    Installed it. Works fine. But it takes up 6K of memory.

    1. Apr 18, 2008

      Anonymous says:

      More correctly, it uses 6380K (=6.38 Meg) of memory.  That's a lot for such...

      More correctly, it uses 6380K (=6.38 Meg) of memory.  That's a lot for such a small program with such a simple function.

  2. Oct 12, 2007

    Anonymous says:

    If it gives "Failed to initialize properly 0xc0000135" it's because it needs the...

    If it gives "Failed to initialize properly 0xc0000135" it's because it needs the .NET Framework.  That's no shame, so I think mentioning that requirement on this page would be helpful, unlike MS' error messages. (Or am I mistaken?)

    1. Oct 12, 2007

      Anonymous says:

      Update: After I installed .NET all was fine. This fix works too, awesome.

      Update: After I installed .NET all was fine. This fix works too, awesome.

      1. Oct 12, 2007

        Anonymous says:

        Btw I am such a smuck. The .NET req. is on your page so ignore my ramblings.

        Btw I am such a smuck. The .NET req. is on your page so ignore my ramblings.

  3. Oct 27, 2007

    Anonymous says:

    Works great... what took you so long? Thanks much.

    Works great... what took you so long? Thanks much.

  4. Nov 05, 2007

    Anonymous says:

    Thankyou\! This has been bugging me for years, can't believe MS never fixed it\!

    Thank-you! This has been bugging me for years, can't believe MS never fixed it!

  5. Nov 09, 2007

    Anonymous says:

    It works\! I think MS was trying to slowly drive their customers crazy by refusi...

    It works! I think MS was trying to slowly drive their customers crazy by refusing to fix this bug.

  6. Nov 10, 2007

    Anonymous says:

    Superb fix. Noted and blogged it in my bog here

    Superb fix. Noted and blogged it in my bog here - http://atpeaz.placidthoughts.com/index.php?/archives/239-Tip-Fixing-the-Windows-Taskbar-Tooltip-Bug-The-perfect-solution\!.html

  7. Nov 20, 2007

    Anonymous says:

    This is awesome... Hope you don't mink I created an addon of this program that i...

    This is awesome... Hope you don't mink I created an addon of this program that is meant to be integrated into Windows XP CD-Roms using nLite

     http://www.wincert.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=2071

  8. Dec 04, 2007

    Anonymous says:

    Oh sweet lord thank you so much for this I cannot believe that KB article from M...

    Oh sweet lord thank you so much for this - I cannot believe that KB article from M$ - restart  your computer to fix a tooltip!

     Balaji

  9. Jan 02, 2008

    Anonymous says:

    Just works\! I installed an earlier version (?) on VISTA that did not, but this ...

    Just works!

    I installed an earlier version on VISTA that did not, but this one (1.0.1) works...

  10. Feb 06, 2008

    Anonymous says:

    I miss the times when you got a 30kb utility for something like that... now ther...

    I miss the times when you got a 30kb utility for something like that... now there has to be a pointless setup routine,and a 40mb+ runtime requirement... no thanks... it would be fair to post the registry entries ,so .netHater can this on their own !

  11. Feb 06, 2008

    Anonymous says:

    for all those who doesnt like dotPOINTLESSnet,get nircmd\! a small commandline b...

    for all those who doesnt like dotPOINTLESSnet,get nircmd!

    a small commandline based utility and use :

    "nircmd win settopmost class "tooltips_class32" 1"

    this sets the windows class for tooltips to topmost,after that tool tips work like they should.

    nircmd just sets this value ,and exits,no cpu/ram is further used !!! you can create a shortcut/.cmd file for this,so in case your tooltips re hiding,just use the shortcut and your done.

    1. Aug 14

      Anonymous says:

      thanks for this tip\! it works great\! i use tooltipfixer on two computers, but ...

      thanks for this tip! it works great!

      i use tooltipfixer on two computers, but it didn't work at all on a third one, so this will be my way of sorting the bug there

  12. Feb 21, 2008

    Anonymous says:

    Thanks works great.

    Thanks - works great.

    http://junglist.gen.nz

  13. Feb 28, 2008

    Anonymous says:

    YESSS\!\! Thank you for this tiny utility\!\! Why is M$ not able to fix it? "Pat...

    YESSS!! Thank you for this tiny utility!!

    Why is M$ not able to fix it? "Patch day" ... Automatic update  etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.? Strange.....

    NeoSmart Technologies rocks! M$ s***s!


    Thank you from getting rid of this annoying problem!

    -- hfrmobile

  14. Feb 29, 2008

    Anonymous says:

    Thanks a lot\!

    Thanks a lot!

  15. Mar 14, 2008

    Anonymous says:

    Is there an option to do a silent install?

    Is there an option to do a silent install?

    1. Mar 16, 2008

      Mahmoud Al-Qudsi says:

      Of course. Here are the available commandline switches: /S Silent install/uni...

      Of course. Here are the available command-line switches:

      /S		Silent install/uninstall
/D=dir		Installation Directory
/NCRC		Do not verify setup files

  16. Mar 18, 2008

    Anonymous says:

    Hey Computer Guru,  I've come across an issue with your patch and two older...

    Hey Computer Guru,

     I've come across an issue with your patch and two older Windows games.  They are Fallout and Spycraft: The Great Game.  Something in your patch affects how the full screen video and mouse cursor work.  The video goes black and the mouse cursor is literally painting the current video on the screen.  I'm trying to find out what is it about your tool that causes this so I can look into why other users have these problems without your product installed (perhaps they have a service like yours with similar functions?).

     Please let me know your thoughts on this.

     Thanks,

    skouby 

  17. Mar 25, 2008

    Anonymous says:

    Although I have all the .NET installations (and Service Packs), this didn't work...

    Although I have all the .NET installations (and Service Packs), this didn't work for me - each time Windows starts, I get an error message saying that the service failed to start. This on Win 2003 Server.

    Any ideas what to do to fix?

  18. Apr 04, 2008

    Anonymous says:

    Thankyou very much for this utility. All run very well except when I use the Med...

    Thankyou very much for this utility. All run very well except when I use the Media Center Interface in XP Pro.

    Your utility prevents full screen entry; as if someone was using the mouse all the time.

  19. Apr 19, 2008

    Anonymous says:

    This program works very well, but when running it on XP x64, I find that the mem...

    This program works very well, but when running it on XP x64, I find that the memory usage is around 13 megabytes and continues to go up.  Does this program have any known memory leaks?

    1. Apr 20, 2008

      Anonymous says:

      I'm noticing the same thing on XP x64.  I guess it's a good thing that the ...

      I'm noticing the same thing on XP x64.  I guess it's a good thing that the reason I'm using x64 is to support my 4GB of RAM.

      Seriously, though; I can't understand why this utility should be eating up so much memory, especially if it's using the .NET framework.  Is this some sort of artifact of .NET and maybe it's not really using this much memory?  It is just a memory leak?  Wish I had the source so I could see if it's fixable. 

  20. Apr 25, 2008

    Anonymous says:

    This bug has been fixed on Windows XP Service Pack 3.

    This bug has been fixed on Windows XP Service Pack 3.

    1. Apr 28, 2008

      Mahmoud Al-Qudsi says:

      Are you sure?I've experienced on Windows XP SP3 during the beta...... so I don't...

      Are you sure?I've experienced on Windows XP SP3 during the beta...... so I don't think that's true.

      1. May 07, 2008

        Anonymous says:

        I don't know if the bug is fixed in the final XP SP3 release, but I sure know th...

        I don't know if the bug is fixed in the final XP SP3 release, but I sure know that SP3 breaks the NST ToolTipFixer service.

        After applying SP3, the NST service will no longer autostart.  Event Viewer shows the following:
        Timeout (30000 milliseconds) waiting for the NST ToolTipFixer service to connect.
        and then the next (separate) entry shows: 

        The NST ToolTipFixer service failed to start due to the following error:

        The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

        So I sure hope it's fixed in SP3 because I'm sure not going to manually start the service every boot...

        1. May 09, 2008

          Alex T. says:

          This is a known issue and is being looked upon right now if it is a bug with TTF...

          This is a known issue and is being looked upon right now if it is a bug with TTF or if it is something else. We will have updated information out as soon as we know more ourselves. Thank you.

        2. May 14, 2008

          Mahmoud Al-Qudsi says:

          ToolTipFixer has been confirmed working

          ToolTipFixer has been confirmed working on Windows XP SP3.

          However under certain circumstances the service will fail to start for some reason - we're looking into that matter. I'd advise uninstalling TTF before upgrading to SP3 then reinstalling it as a temporary workaround.   

  21. Jun 16

    Anonymous says:

    Thank you... Had this problem since I built my computer 6 months ago. I use VTP ...

    Thank you... Had this problem since I built my computer 6 months ago. I use VTP to transform my desktop and presumed this was just an inherent fault I had to put up with.... Not any longer - works like a dream ! NW

  22. Aug 14

    Anonymous says:

    Works great, as attested to above.  However, I really am confused that it u...

    Works great, as attested to above.  However, I really am confused that it uses more memory than some of my far more significant applications.  This really makes me wonder what this little tool is really doing behind the scenes.

  23. Oct 09

    Anonymous says:

    This tool works fine in sp3.Oleg from Sofia/Bulgaria.

    This tool works fine in sp3.Oleg from Sofia/Bulgaria.

  24. Oct 15

    Anonymous says:

    Very elegant solution to a very annoying "feature" of Windows that Microsoft jus...

    Very elegant solution to a very annoying "feature" of Windows that Microsoft just wont fix themselves.

  25. Nov 03

    Anonymous says:

    Trayiconhandler.ocx is flagged bij my antivirus/antspyware tool. Is that part of...

    Trayicon_handler.ocx is flagged bij my antivirus/antspyware tool. Is that part of ToolTipFixer??

  26. Nov 04

    Anonymous says:

    Hi, Tooltipfixer is generating an odd behavior in some applications. To demonst...

    Hi,

    Tooltipfixer is generating an odd behavior in some applications. To demonstrate this, please follow these steps:

    1. Download and install the Ultragram application from http://www.ultragram.com/
    2. Launch the application.
    3. Click on Help | Contents and minimize the help window.
    4. Click on File | Open samples OR File | Open project OR on the Properties icon in the toolbar. Each of these commands should open a dialog box.
    5. The dialog box is not displayed.
    6. Click anywhere in the main window, the dialog box appears.
    7. If the TooltipFixer service is disabled, the problem disappears.

    Thanks anyway for this useful utility.

    –
    Patrick

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