Windows lose focus, seemingly at random

Anonymous

Since upgrading from Vista Business to 7 Business, I've run into an intermittent issue. Windows seem to lose focus at random. It may be happening more than I realize, since I have to be actively using the window to notice when it stops accepting my input. For instance, I might be scrolling to the bottom of a web page when I realize that moving the scroll wheel on my mouse no longer has any effect, or I might be typing something in Word while looking away from the screen, only to realize upon looking back that half of the sentence I'd typed was ignored because of a shift in focus. If I'm reading a particularly long web page, I'll occasionally notice the color of the transparent title bar change slightly when the focus changes, as though I'd clicked over to another program. I haven't been able to figure out what is stealing the focus whenever this happens, and it's a new occurrence under 7. Unfortunately, it's sporadic enough that trying to turn off programs running in the background to determine if they're the cause may prove kind of tricky. Has anyone else run into anything like this? If so, any fixes? I have a feeling the culprit may be the GMail Notifier or Trillian Astra, since they both pop up notices from time to time, but many (if not all) of those notices typically don't cause problems.

Any help you can offer would be great.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Hey karpar,

Any third party software conflicting with Windows components can result to this behavior. Hence, putting your system in clean boot state can help in determining the culprit application or program. A clean boot loads only those files and programs that are absolutely required by the Operating System. Upon determining the background application causing the issue, you may contact the vendor for assistance.

Steps to perform clean boot:

1) Click Start, type msconfig in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.

2) If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Continue.

3) On the General tab, click Selective Startup.

4) Under Selective Startup, click to clear the Load Startup Items check box.

5) Click the Services tab, click to select the Hide All Microsoft Services check box, and then click Disable All.

6) Click OK.

7) When you are prompted, click Restart.

After the computer starts, test and see whether the sporadic behavior of Windows loosing focus continues.

If not, we definitely know for sure that the behavior is contributed by third party software conflicts.

To determine which application, follow the steps mentioned in the article below.

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

After you determine the startup item or the service that causes the problem, contact the program manufacturer to determine whether the problem can be resolved

Having done so, don’t forget to return your computer to start normally.

Reset the computer to start as usual

1) Click Start, type msconfig.exe in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.

2) If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.

3) On the General tab, click the Normal Startup option, and then click OK.

4) When you are prompted to restart the computer, click Restart.

Hope this resolves the issue.

Regards,

Shinmila H - Microsoft Support

Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forumand let us know what you think

0 comments

74 additional answers

Anonymous

2013-09-08T00:17:42+00:00

I had this same issue in Win7 Pro 64-bit and it was a real nuance for the longest time (I'd lose focus from any application I was working in). After trying everything, today I noticed a correlation between WORD Office 2010 losing focus and a couple of notices from my wireless adapter software. I disabled the TP-LINK software that put an icon in my notifications area on the task bar and the problem went away. I think my Wi-fi was changing status/dropping in and out and this was causing the lack of focus.

Ugh.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2013-08-16T01:45:53+00:00

Even if really in delay, I've faced this problem and tried to solve. Basically, windows is sh*t and some of his executables are popping up and stealing the focus of the current application you were using. This was happening to me with games (windowed/fullscreen). I was chilling and playing my games, and I suddenly wasn't able to do it because fullscreen game would get minimized in favor of the newly forced focused application. This was happening like every minute so I couldn't play. Enraged, I decided to fight the problem and IN MY CASE, found these processes were causing the problem: wuauclt.exe wermgr.exe slui.exe Well, all the aforementioned ****, is all microsoft software to manage updates, system errors or windows validation (I was still with windows 7 trial so I had the 30 days trial and the message popping up). In the end, I wrote a little script to check and kill those process every 10 milliseconds, if they're found. That solved the problem. Now, I would invite Microsoft to put his slimy checking software from where they came. Here's the sourcecode, it uses AutoIT engine to run, but you can easily read the code and port it on other languages:

While 1

If ProcessExists("wuauclt.exe") Then

    ProcessClose("wuauclt.exe")

ElseIf ProcessExists("wermgr.exe") Then

    ProcessClose("wermgr.exe")

ElseIf ProcessExists("slui.exe") Then

    ProcessClose("slui.exe")

EndIf

    Sleep(10)

WEnd

AutoIT is free and you can download the compiler from their site (google it). Copy paste this in the scintilla editor, save it and run it. You have to manually close it from taskbar or from the IDE.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2013-07-27T14:14:53+00:00

ofc i tried.. but after that day i didnt have this problem that i could note off its just pops up randomnly when i am in a game hasnt happend after that day but it will forsure pop up again :P
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2013-07-25T01:50:02+00:00

Have you ran msconfig to try isolating the problem?
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments