When you create or change menus in a program, it's useful to think of the top-level menu and each popup menu as being separate menus. The top-level menu has a menu handle, each popup menu within a top-level menu has its own menu handle, and the system menu (which is also a popup) has a menu handle.
Each item in a menu is defined by three characteristics: The first characteristic is what appears in the menu. This is either a text string or a bitmap. The second characteristic is either an ID number that Windows sends to your program in a WM_COMMAND message or a popup menu that Windows displays when the user chooses that menu item. The third characteristic describes the attribute of the menu item, including whether the item is disabled, grayed, or checked.