It seemed to me that Photoshop CS3 was suddenly opening menus on the left. I couldn't remember having changed anything, and it was very annoying. I quickly discovered that it wasn't just CS3, but all menus in Vista. Vista and its applications have become less menu-centric, and more intuitive (or so some would call it), so it was most noticable in a menu-driven app like Photoshop.
It turns out to be a function of Vista's tablet-PC interface. When Vista decides you now own a tablet PC, by plugging in a graphics board for example, it switches the "handedness" of menus by opening them on the left. Vista assumes that the user is right-handed, and that the PC is a true tablet PC, where a pen is used to draw on the screen as opposed to a graphics tablet. (I'm in fact left-handed and only use a tablet.) Vista therefore kindly and mysteriously switches the direction that menus open without asking you.
The fix is as follows: in the Start Menu's search box, type "Tablet PC" (without quotes). Click the result "Tablet PC Settings". Under "Handedness", click "Left-handed". The menus will appear in the expected direction again. |
