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.

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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

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74 additional answers

Anonymous

2012-04-08T20:40:30+00:00

Hi Shinmila H,

I've followed the above instructions, and having disabled all the non Microsoft startup applications, the focus problem continues to persist. What else do you think I could do?

I'm on Windows 7 x64 Professional, and the applications installed here are the same as the ones I had installed on my old laptop, where this problem never came up.

Thanks,

Santosh
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Anonymous

2012-04-19T15:41:26+00:00

Thanks for your help! I had the same problem with Dell Vostro 1015 with Win7-32 and changed the Bluetooth driver (enumerator) from Toshiba to Microsoft. The problem disappeared after that. Thanks again!
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Anonymous

2012-04-22T04:07:36+00:00

I'm seeing a lot of activity related to this issue. Isn't there a universal fix that Microsoft might offer so we don't have to track down which of any number of non-Microsoft applications are interacting this way with Windows 7? I never had the problem at all over several years of using Windows 7 until I bought and installed Office 2010 and then had a scad of MS download upgrades (I have automatic update turned on).

The most consistent place where I notice the problem, although not the only one, is in Outlook, when I'm typing a new e-mail.

I tried the registry key value change suggested elsewhere, without success, and I see it isn't mentioned here.

This strikes me more as an operating system issue. Am I off-base in this impression?

Thanks,

Terry
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Anonymous

2012-04-25T09:49:45+00:00

I'm seeing a lot of activity related to this issue. Isn't there a universal fix that Microsoft might offer so we don't have to track down which of any number of non-Microsoft applications are interacting this way with Windows 7? I never had the problem at all over several years of using Windows 7 until I bought and installed Office 2010 and then had a scad of MS download upgrades (I have automatic update turned on).

The most consistent place where I notice the problem, although not the only one, is in Outlook, when I'm typing a new e-mail.

I tried the registry key value change suggested elsewhere, without success, and I see it isn't mentioned here.

This strikes me more as an operating system issue. Am I off-base in this impression?

Thanks,

Terry

Smack on the money Terry. There are numerous instances of this being reported all over the net, I know because I've been struggling with it for months and none of the promoted solutions have worked.

Due to it being highly intermittent, it's very hard to diagnose properly. When disabling various components (as suggested for diagnosis) you're just as likely going to get a false positive so it needs another approach.

All I know is that when the focus is lost, it goes to something that has no file menu because, if gone long enough, pressing Alt-space doesn't bring up a menu. So it is going to some hidden service - but why should a service without a dialogue claim the focus? Not much to go on. Most of the time the focus only gets stolen for a brief blink of the Window frame anyway so there's no opportunity to correlate it with any other visible activity (e.g. looking in the Task Manager)

What we need is a logger that identifies the handing of focus between applications
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