Something clobbering custom menu

I have an Access app that has been distributed with run-time installation to
many different customers over many years.
It is developed in Access 2000. The custom menu bar has had no problems in
the past.

However on one new computer it was installed on last week the custom 'Tools'
menu (which normally contains items such as 'Backup Data' and
'Preferences..' etc) has been replaced by a single menu item under Tools
that says 'Other..'.
There is no 'Other..' item on my custom menu, and all the items that should
be there are missing!

BTW, the 'Other..' item, when tried, simply reports back (according to the
customer) that "no bluetooth devices have been found" but it no longer has
any effect when I was on was on-site to examine the problem.

It seems that some external application has set itself up to hook into
Office and/or Access menus with an additional or replacement menu item under
Tools.
I do not expect an instant answer as to which external application that
might be doing this. However, could someone possibly guide me as to what
mechanisms that might be used to externally modify the menu on Access apps,
and so where I should look (in the registry etc) to identify and defeat
whatever mechanism is being used to clobber my custom Tools menu.

More information in case useful. On this particular computer my setup
program (built uisng Access PDW) installed Microsoft Access 2000 SR-1
Runtime in order to run my application. The computer already had Office 2003
on it including Access 2003, but generally I have never known that it
interfere with the run-time installed application.

Thanks,
Ian.

re: Something clobbering custom menu

Ian Hinson wrote:[color=blue]
> I have an Access app that has been distributed with run-time
> installation to many different customers over many years.
> It is developed in Access 2000. The custom menu bar has had no
> problems in the past.
>
> However on one new computer it was installed on last week the custom
> 'Tools' menu (which normally contains items such as 'Backup Data' and
> 'Preferences..' etc) has been replaced by a single menu item under
> Tools that says 'Other..'.
> There is no 'Other..' item on my custom menu, and all the items that
> should be there are missing!
>
> BTW, the 'Other..' item, when tried, simply reports back (according
> to the customer) that "no bluetooth devices have been found" but it
> no longer has any effect when I was on was on-site to examine the
> problem. [snip][/color]

I had one user with this exact same problem "Other" instead of my menu
choices and even the same message about bluetooth. Never did figure it out.
I ended up replacing the menu bar with one having a single item that did
nothing but call a shortcut menu because I found that shortcut menus were
not affected.

--
I don't check the Email account attached
to this message. Send instead to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com

re: Something clobbering custom menu

Rick Brandt wrote:
[color=blue]
> I ended up replacing the menu bar with one having a single item that did
> nothing but call a shortcut menu because I found that shortcut menus were
> not affected.[/color]

Rick, could I ask you to expand on this a little? I make custom popups,
toolbars and menu bars all the time for my apps and am quite familiar
with menu design in Access.

So say I had a menu bar, mnuTim, with, for example, 3 control items that
are all submenus (with their own control items) across the top (for the
example, say they are: File, Utilities, Help).

How would what you're describing be done?
--
Tim http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal/
^o<
/#) "Burp-beep, burp-beep, burp-beep?" - Quaker Jake
/^^ "Whatcha doin?" - Ditto "TIM-MAY!!" - Me

re: Something clobbering custom menu

Tim Marshall wrote:[color=blue]
> Rick Brandt wrote:
>[color=green]
>> I ended up replacing the menu bar with one having a single item that
>> did nothing but call a shortcut menu because I found that shortcut
>> menus were not affected.[/color]
>
> Rick, could I ask you to expand on this a little? I make custom
> popups, toolbars and menu bars all the time for my apps and am quite
> familiar with menu design in Access.
>
> So say I had a menu bar, mnuTim, with, for example, 3 control items
> that are all submenus (with their own control items) across the top
> (for the example, say they are: File, Utilities, Help).
>
> How would what you're describing be done?[/color]

What I found is that normal menu items were not affected, nor were shortcut
menus. Only sub-menus on menubars. So what I did was replace my menubar
with one that had a single item "Menu".

In the OnAction property of that I call a function that displays a shortcut
menu...

CommandBars![ShortcutMenuName].ShowPopup

....which displays at the location of the mouse cursor so it looks virtually
the same as a sub-menu.

In that shortcut menu I reproduced all of the menu items and submenus that
were previously on my old menubar. The result is pretty much a
vertical-layout version of the old menubar.

I actually liked this better beyond solving the original problem because I
found that my old menubar was sometimes too long for users with lower
resolutions on their displays anyway. The vertical style also eliminates
that.

--
I don't check the Email account attached
to this message. Send instead to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com

re: Something clobbering custom menu

I feel the most likely culprit would be a COM Add-in.
These usually work by adding their own menu item(s) to existing menus.
It is possible for a badly behaved add-in to wipe out what was already
there.

I'm hoping to get to the root of this problem (instead of doing a menu
workaround),
when I get another chance to look at the customer's computer next week.

I will be revisiting the customer with the problem next week.
"Rick Brandt" <rickbrandt2@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3OEwe.884$U61.51@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com.. .[color=blue]
> Tim Marshall wrote:[color=green]
>> Rick Brandt wrote:
>>[color=darkred]
>>> I ended up replacing the menu bar with one having a single item that
>>> did nothing but call a shortcut menu because I found that shortcut
>>> menus were not affected.[/color]
>>
>> Rick, could I ask you to expand on this a little? I make custom
>> popups, toolbars and menu bars all the time for my apps and am quite
>> familiar with menu design in Access.
>>
>> So say I had a menu bar, mnuTim, with, for example, 3 control items
>> that are all submenus (with their own control items) across the top
>> (for the example, say they are: File, Utilities, Help).
>>
>> How would what you're describing be done?[/color]
>
> What I found is that normal menu items were not affected, nor were
> shortcut
> menus. Only sub-menus on menubars. So what I did was replace my menubar
> with one that had a single item "Menu".
>
> In the OnAction property of that I call a function that displays a
> shortcut
> menu...
>
> CommandBars![ShortcutMenuName].ShowPopup
>
> ...which displays at the location of the mouse cursor so it looks
> virtually
> the same as a sub-menu.
>
> In that shortcut menu I reproduced all of the menu items and submenus that
> were previously on my old menubar. The result is pretty much a
> vertical-layout version of the old menubar.
>
> I actually liked this better beyond solving the original problem because I
> found that my old menubar was sometimes too long for users with lower
> resolutions on their displays anyway. The vertical style also eliminates
> that.
>
> --
> I don't check the Email account attached
> to this message. Send instead to...
> RBrandt at Hunter dot com
>
>
>[/color]

re: Something clobbering custom menu

Ian Hinson wrote:[color=blue]
> I feel the most likely culprit would be a COM Add-in.
> These usually work by adding their own menu item(s) to existing menus.
> It is possible for a badly behaved add-in to wipe out what was already
> there.
>
> I'm hoping to get to the root of this problem (instead of doing a menu
> workaround),
> when I get another chance to look at the customer's computer next
> week.[/color]

For sure, if you have the time go for it and please post back if you find the
culprit. In my case I had 300 users and ONE guy with this problem. When
reinstalling and updating Office didn't fix it I needed something quick to get
the situation resolved.

Just to fill in some more detail on his case... At one point I put a known good
MDB copy on his PC and tried the menus. I think I had three sub-menus on the
bar and as soon as I opened the file one of them immediately reverted to the
"Other" problem. The other two worked for a few minutes, but upon subsequent
openings of the file first one went and then the other. It presents almost like
a virus of some kind.

I'm not positive (this happened about a year ago), but I'm pretty sure that once
the menus got messed up they stayed messed up when the file was copied back onto
my development system so it appears that the file itself is getting
changed/corrupted.

--
I don't check the Email account attached
to this message. Send instead to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com

re: Something clobbering custom menu

Reading your own experience is like "deja vu all over again".

I have over 200 customers using the program, and only one computer has this
problem.
I put in a fresh, known good, copy of the front-end and the menu was still
instantly stuffed.

In this case the particular computer in question is an IBM laptop with
new-fangled bluetooth networking built into the machine.
I'll keep you posted if I find a solution this Monday.

"Rick Brandt" <rickbrandt2@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:93Rwe.1190$U61.551@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com ...[color=blue]
> Ian Hinson wrote:[color=green]
>> I feel the most likely culprit would be a COM Add-in.
>> These usually work by adding their own menu item(s) to existing menus.
>> It is possible for a badly behaved add-in to wipe out what was already
>> there.
>>
>> I'm hoping to get to the root of this problem (instead of doing a menu
>> workaround),
>> when I get another chance to look at the customer's computer next
>> week.[/color]
>
> For sure, if you have the time go for it and please post back if you find
> the culprit. In my case I had 300 users and ONE guy with this problem.
> When reinstalling and updating Office didn't fix it I needed something
> quick to get the situation resolved.
>
> Just to fill in some more detail on his case... At one point I put a known
> good MDB copy on his PC and tried the menus. I think I had three
> sub-menus on the bar and as soon as I opened the file one of them
> immediately reverted to the "Other" problem. The other two worked for a
> few minutes, but upon subsequent openings of the file first one went and
> then the other. It presents almost like a virus of some kind.
>
> I'm not positive (this happened about a year ago), but I'm pretty sure
> that once the menus got messed up they stayed messed up when the file was
> copied back onto my development system so it appears that the file itself
> is getting changed/corrupted.
>
> --
> I don't check the Email account attached
> to this message. Send instead to...
> RBrandt at Hunter dot com
>
>[/color]

re: Something clobbering custom menu

Ian Hinson wrote:[color=blue]
> Reading your own experience is like "deja vu all over again".
>
> I have over 200 customers using the program, and only one computer
> has this problem.
> I put in a fresh, known good, copy of the front-end and the menu was
> still instantly stuffed.
>
> In this case the particular computer in question is an IBM laptop with
> new-fangled bluetooth networking built into the machine.
> I'll keep you posted if I find a solution this Monday.[/color]

My problem unit was a Thinkpad as well.

(interesting....)

--
I don't check the Email account attached
to this message. Send instead to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com