Screen disappears and goes back to desktop screen

Anonymous
2011-10-05T17:10:43+00:00

Can anyone tell me why, in Windows 7, when typing or not typing, the screen automatically disappears from the task at hand and it reverts back to the "home screen"? This happens to me constantly on both my laptop and desk top and it really is getting aggravating. It does not matter what I am doing; I can be typing an email, a letter, or just reading something on my screen and whatever I am working on just disappears and I am back to my Home Screen. This idiosyncracy occurs on my 14 month old lap top and my one week old desk top and I need to know why. Thanks for any input

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

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Anonymous
2011-11-07T19:39:11+00:00

I found it! Thanks so much for getting me started and knowing I wasn't nuts.

Go to "Control Panel" then click on the words "Appearance and Personalization".  Next you will get a "Task Bar and Start Menu". Click on "Customize the Start Menu" and then "Taskbar". You will see the words "Preview desktop with AeroPeek". Simply unclick the box to use the Aero Peek.  Problem solved.

Why Microsoft would do this I will never know. It seems so useless to me. It almost drove me crazy until I solved the problem. Hope this helps others who have this problem

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Anonymous
2011-10-06T21:20:42+00:00

So the application window just disappears, but you don't have to click on the taskbar to get it back, rignt? You just wiggle the mouse and it comes back without clicking on the taskbar? If that's what's happening, I agree it's bizarre. Computers are dumb machines that unfortunately do bizarre things sometimes, although this is a new one on me. I see no one else has posted a reply here, so it must be a pretty rare thing.

It sounds like you have the antivirus and firewall areas covered. I agree it doesn't sound like a hardware problem, but the only other thing I can think of is possibly some utility that your computer manufacturer might've put on your machines. They like to do that. I've personally seen that on Dell, HP, and Toshiba PCs as well as other folks' PCs I've helped with from time to time. Apparently your desktop has been doing this since you got it since it's only a week old, but did your 14 month old laptop always do this or is it something that just happened recently? If it's the latter, you could probably use System Restore to go back to a date prior to the problem.

On the desktop I'd recommend what's called a clean boot where you run msconfig and disable everything in the startup tab except for your antivirus program to see if that will get around the problem. To run msconfig, click Start and type msconfig in the search box. Then click on msconfig where it shows it and click on the startup tab. Once there, uncheck everything there except your antivirus program. Then reboot and run that way for long enough to see if the problem's still with you. If it goes away, then you can slowly start adding things back until you find the culprit.

One other thing you could check would be your screen saver. If you have some custom screen saver, that could be doing it, so you could try changing it to something you know to be part of Windows.

If that doesn't do it, I'm afraid I'm out of ideas, so I wish you good luck!

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-02-23T17:50:07+00:00

    I have an HP desktop and I've run into the $60 fee option a couple times too. Like you - no way I'm doing that. I'm not paying to fix their problem. It would be like a car mechanic creating a slight leak to only have you come back later to find and fix - while being charged...

    But this issue is happening on my Toshiba Satellite laptop - less than two years old.

    Still surprised no one from MS or the YouTube DIY community has come up with a fix for this problem that first occurred in 2011 with WIN 7 and is now occurring in WIN 10.

    This "bug" occurs 10-12 times an hour. It's an annoying, but not debilitating problem.  TIME WASTER!!!

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-02-23T18:23:52+00:00

    im starting to wonder if hp support are just scam artist cause this is the second time I contacted them and i told them right at the beginning , dont even waste my time by wanting to connect to my laptop like you did the first time for 40 min and then tell me $60 fee they will transfer me to hp technical support! So they asked a few question and had the nerve to ask me if i would allow them to connect to my laptop and if the chat session disconnected what was my phone number. They are really comical & when i told him he was the one  who connected to my laptop the first time he then said for a minimal fee the hp technical support would fix my issue and this was after 4-5 min ago I told him not to even bring up anything about paying when hp needs to represent the warranty that I have stupidly extended for 3 years at the time of purchase! im starting to wonder if they got on my laptop by accident cause they haven't helped me at all  both times ! i need a new keyboard but they come up with all these excuses that is so pathetic. Never again will i buy a hp product ever and i been buying nothing but hp  for over 30yrs!

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-02-26T22:51:49+00:00

    Desktops and Laptops became disposables several years ago.  I haven't spent more than $700 on either one of those in more than 7 years. I no longer buy a warranty on any laptop/desktop - treating them as disposables.  I'd recommend spending the warranty money on:

    1. Back-up devices and then back-up regularly (at least monthly). 
    2. A relationship with a local "break & fix" technician if their fix is for recovering lost data and is less than a new disposable device (with newer software and hardware).

    My surprise CONTINUES in not getting a response to the original problem (that first occurred in 2011 with WIN 7 and is now occurring in WIN 10) - "wandering cursor" as I'm calling it now.  Two out of five times when I try to use my cursor (switching it to a different place on the screen), the open window either freezes or closes with the cursor switching to the Start icon along the bottom menu. I then need to hit the left side of the touchpad to get back to the open window or move the cursor back to the original place in the open window and click the touchpad to get back to the item I was working on - a very frustrating time waster.

    The only item from Microsoft I've received is the item below which I'm cautious on accessing because I think it might be spam/malware.

    Secure! Online File Transfer Notification Via OneDrive

    "" class="_rp_t1 PersonaPaneLauncher lpc-hoverTarget" role="button" style="display:inline-block;cursor:pointer;" tabindex="0">

    O

    "" class="_pe_R2 PersonaPaneLauncher lpc-hoverTarget" role="button" style="display:block;cursor:pointer;" tabindex="0">

    " . Press the Enter key to open the contact card." class="bidi allowTextSelection" style="unicode-bidi:embed;direction:ltr;user-select:text;cursor:pointer;">"Office365 Microsoft Alert® <@noreply.com>" <@equipxmed.com>

    |

    Fri  3:35 PM

    <br> <br><br><br> <br> <br>A document has been sent to you via <br> --- <br> --- --- <br><br><br><br> <br><br><br> <br>File Type - PDF-0018  <br><br> <br><br> <br><br> Login with your Office365 account to view file: <br> --- <br><br><br><br> <br><br><br> <br>Click Here To Review Document <br> --- <br> --- <br> ---

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