The cure for wandering hands or, more accurately, a jumpy mouse pointer that is too hard to control.

You click on the Start Menu, maybe the Programs menu, then an application group and then another cascading menu with the specific program you want and then, before you've had a chance to pick the item you want, you let your mouse hand wander a little and the next thing you know a completely different submenu pops open and you select the wrong item. Arrgh!

Sometimes, Windows is just too accommodating in grabbing menus your cursor meanders near. But you can tame this tendency:

• Open the Registry Editor. (If you don't know how, you can find simple instructions (and important precautions) at www.microsoft.com. See their Knowledge Base.
• Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop and click on Desktop to show its values in the right pane.
• Look for a string named MenuShowDelay. If it's not there, you can create it by right-clicking on Desktop and selecting New and String Value.
• Double-click on MenuShowDelay to open the Edit String dialogue box and change the value to 65534 before clicking on OK.
• Close up the Registry and restart the computer.

Now when you click on a menu, it stays open, even if you accidentally wander near another one. Actually what you have done is changed how long it takes before a menu is activated without being clicked on;  you've made it take over a minute (65,534 milliseconds), which is much longer than you are likely to idle in any one place. A downside to this is that none of the menus you do want will open automatically, now. You have to click on each one. But for those of us with wandering hands, the trade-off is worth it.