Menu select item stuck on screen after context or command menu has closed

The problem was introduced back in Windows 2000 when fading menu items were added. Originally, the feature was added in kernel-mode code and was tightly integrated into portions of the UI. Since it worked so well, it ended up staying there. The problem has appeared from time to time, but no one has had a reliable way to reproduce it in the kernel debugger to get it fixed.

The same effect can be achieved without changing the screen resolution or color depth. Go to Start -> Run -> and type tskill dwm. This command will reset the desktop window manager without the need to change the screen resolution.

Changing the screen resolution or color depth also resets the desktop window manager, so it's always been a workaround for the bug when it appears. Either of these solutions will fix the problem.

Last time I saw this was in Windows 2000 where it happened to me occasionally.

I suppose, a workaround would be to disable menu items fading out after clicking in the Performance options:

In Windows 7 (and probably Vista), using the task manager to kill "dwm.exe" (it restarts automatically) seems a pretty painless way to get rid of the artifact.