Sorry Bill ... I missed the fact that you were using an MDI Form. My bad. Guess I misunderstood you too! <g>

Anyway, it seems to work ok for me if I do the following:

Put the call to processToolStripMenuItem.ShowDropDown() in *both* the ParentForm's Activated event and the MainForm's MenuItem Click event:

// MainForm
private void processToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
	ChildForm oForm = new ChildForm();
	oForm.MdiParent = this;
	oForm.Show();

	this.processToolStripMenuItem.ShowDropDown();
}

private void MainForm_Activated(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
	this.processToolStripMenuItem.ShowDropDown();
}

~~Bonnie




>Bonnie
>
>I have a feeling that I misunderstood you (surprise!)
>
>I put this code below in the activated event handler of the menu form.
>
>

> // Show the Process Menu Dropdowns
>         processToolStripMenuItem.ShowDropDown();
>

>
>I think you might have meant that I should put in the activated event of the MDIChild form.
>
>I don't know how to call a method of a toolstripmenu item object in the partent form
>
>Could you show me the code you used?
>
>Thanks