Applications stealing focus - reg key no longer fixes

Anonymous
2010-04-08T18:42:59+00:00

I want to prevent any applications from stealing focus in windows 7 (and Vista).  Tweakui used to modify the below Registry key to 0.  Then there was a key that affected the number of flashes a "want to steal focus" window would make in the taskbar.

ForegroundLockTimeout

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

This reg key is apparently no longer working.  Focus stealing is a major problem, from canceling/oking window that pop-up, to getting virus's from IE windows.  Applications are still written to do this, including MS Office 2007.  If you are typing an email something can pop up and get the next key stroke.  I need to fix this.  Any ideas, or has Windows completely removed a needed feature.

tags: steal focus apps active regedit

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Apps

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Anonymous
2011-10-23T11:13:03+00:00

I solved the problem in this way:

I noticed that just before the focus was "stolen", the PC got "busy" for a second (beside the mouse appeared the small circle indicating the processor is working hard on sth).

So I started the Task Manager and gave a close look at the processes. I noticed that one process took over a relevat percentage of CPU usage exactly an instant before the focus was stolen from the task manager window.

Since it was a process that I don't need to be active all the time (sth about Vodafone Mobile connection, which I rarely use) I just stopped the process and then didn't allow the process to be started every time I turn on the PC. I did this last step using Piriform's free software  "CCleaner", but I'm sure you can find different tools for this...

This was enough to fix it ...

Hope this helped!

Bye!

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-10-26T12:13:56+00:00

    My process name was sth like "Mobile Broadland"

    I don't know if other "focus stealing" applications behave the same way, but I suppose that once you have found the process, whatever application it belongs to, IMHO you can try to stop it and see if it solves the problem.

    Be careful that if the process you think might be the "guilty" one belongs to programs like anti-virus or system stuff you could not success in stopping it.

    Does this answer to your question ?

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-10-26T11:13:02+00:00

    Hi MDellaVolta,

    Waht is the process name? And is this valid for any application that steals focus or only for the Vodafone one?

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-10-23T17:01:35+00:00

    "In Windows 7, applications are not supposed to be allowed to steal focus"

    Bad assumption.  Reality is software is not built perfectly (even Microsoft apps steal at times as mentioned in this thread.  Why get rid of a safety net (allowing us to system wide prevent against focus stealing)?  Relying on individual developers to do the right thing is just not going to work.

    Please re-instate system wide ways to prevent against bad software developers which won't go away in our lifetime.

    Exactly This even happens with Microsofts very own Windows live messenger randomly when a new ad pops up in the main window it will steal focus. I have even seen it steal focus from me while I'm in the middle of a game, this just happened to me 2 days ago while I was playing SC2.

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