Windows Forms - Display text for a combobox

well there is probably half a dozon answers for this but i did a quick run through and 4-5 minutes later i think i have a solution for you.
make the forecolor of your textbox silver or what ever you originally wanted. next set the DropDown style to dropdown this will allow you to have an initial text value that is not in your list. soooo now we are going to use PInvoke...
the function we wil use is:

[DllImport("user32.dll")] We also nee to add this constant.
public static extern int SendMessage(int hWnd, int msg, int wParam, IntPtr lParam);

public const int CB_SHOWDROPDOWN = 0x14F;

Now add a combobox mousedown event to your code.

private void comboBox1_MouseDown(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) <br />{ <br />comboBox1.ForeColor = SystemColors.WindowText;<br />SendMessage(comboBox1.Handle.ToInt32(), CB_SHOWDROPDOWN, 1, IntPtr.Zero);
}

it may be worth throwing this line in the selected index change.