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
    2011-03-17T06:54:07+00:00

    About to uninstall windows 7 from my grandma's computer and install xp, at least I could somewhat control this issue from there...

    Actually its pretty much my computer now, she won't use it because of the operating system bugs.  I told her I would fix them but this one seems over my head.

    I am not going to ever recomend an operating system above xp until this issue is fixed, in fact I am now saying GO MAC!  GO LINUX!

    Im soo glad I got my 3 aser aspire ones right b4 they went 7, got them with xp!

    Any chance someone from microsoft will go through these 4 pages of complaints and actually give us the answer we are looking for?

    It can't be that hard to fix, gotta b a setting someplace...

    Or is microsoft telling us to go suck it and that we don't matter to them?

    They can't ignore it forever, eventually it will hit mainstream,, BIG TIME!!!   and they will b kicking themselves in the *ss when they have a lawsuit on their hands

    Heres a MSDN link with people having this problem and trying to program it out...

    http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/winforms/thread/cc8ab365-49ef-41b7-a771-9af07c850a67

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-03-14T02:10:57+00:00

    I can't believe it is against the law for Microsoft to prevent this happening. The behaviour is a security concern, a privacy concern, and can potentially destroy valuable information on the hard drive.

    I don't know any developer who would defend their right to keep this behaviour alive.

    It is a complete pain in the ****, and not worthy of a mulit-billion dollar world-dominating corporation.

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-03-13T15:41:23+00:00

    This is a SUPREME annoyance.  I too found the reg-tweak and was very excited until I realized it didn't work.

    This is ESPECIALLY annoying/inconvenient/bad practice for the following reason.

    Let's say you are in the middle writing an e-mail, or chatting online, or typing a document, and your fingers are twiddling away and a pop-up steals your focus as you type away.  Before you know it, you've told it to "Continue" or "Cancel", or "Accept", or "Close without saving"...and you're SCREWED.

    Yes, it's happened to me on multiple ocassions and really wish you could control this behavior.

    My .$02

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