How to View the Tool Menu in Internet Explorer 7

The IE7 menu bar doesn't display by default

Windows Internet Explorer

Christiaan Colen / Flickr.com / CC BY-SA 2.0

by Scott Orgera
Scott Orgera has been a tech journalist since 2007. He has 25+ years' experience as a programmer and QA leader and several Microsoft certifications.
Updated March 20, 2019

When you first launch Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), which is the default browser in Windows Vista and an upgrade option in Windows XP, the familiar menu bar that includes options such as File, Edit, Bookmarks, and Help isn't available. In older versions of the browser, the menu bar was displayed by default. If you want to regain this feature, set IE7 to display the menu bar using the following steps.

How to Display the Tool Menu

Open the Internet Explorer browser and follow these steps to set the menu bar to display when you use IE7:

  1. In the upper-right corner of the browser window, select Tools.

  2. Choose Menu Bar. The menu bar displays in the toolbar section of the browser window.

  3. To hide the menu bar, repeat these steps.

Alternatively, right-click a blank area of a web page to bring up the contextual menu. From this menu, select Menu Bar to display the menu bar.

If you run Internet Explorer in full-screen mode, the menu bar is not visible even if it's enabled. The address bar is also not visible in full-screen mode unless you move your cursor the top of the screen. To toggle from full-screen to normal mode, press ​F11.