Can't see search box in Mint 17
 

It's been a fight to get my first Linux installation going, but I thought I just about had it set when today, when I clicked on the menu button, the menu panel opened too large on the screen to see the search box at the top. I can't figure out what's wrong. Since I had re-sized the bottom panel, I thought that might have caused it. But I changed that back and the menu box still runs off the top of the screen. I even tried installing other menu applets but haven't had any success. Any ideas about what is wrong?

This is an issue with your desktop and not with the Mint OS itself: Which desktop environment (MATE, Cinnamon, something else) are you using and what is your screen resolution?

Oh, and welcome to the wonderful world of Linux.

RELEASE=17.2
CODENAME=rafaela
EDITION="Cinnamon 32-bit"
DESCRIPTION="Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela"
DESKTOP=Gnome

1024x600

This is the distro I've used from the beginning of this "adventure," and the resolution is the same.

I don't have Cinnamon installed, so I can't test this, but apparently you aren't alone in encountering this.

Can you point the mouse at the search dialog, press and hold the ALT key, then press and hold the left mouse button and drag the dialog to another position on the screen?

Thanks for the link. Misery loves company sometimes, but I'd rather not be sharing this one! What's puzzling is that it worked fine for several weeks until yesterday.

The trick of holding Alt and dragging doesn't work. But thanks for the suggestion.

Problem solved. I had checked the box to add places and bookmarks in the menu configuration dialog. The menu box stretched up to accommodate them. I unchecked the box and all is well again.

Glad you figured it out. Thanks for sharing the fix.