windows focus

[BJ_M]

weird thing -- used to be when i click a item in the task bar - it would get focus and go on top of any other open window..

all of a sudden - it doesnt do it ... i have manually bring that window to the top ... when i click an item in the taskbar - it just flashes ...

anyone recall where you adjust window focus behaviour in XP ?

[Ai Haibara]

TweakUI, under the General > Focus section, I believe.

[fritzi93]

Do you have the TweakUI Powertoy? Under General -> Focus, you can tick a box to "Prevent Applications from Stealing Focus", and set the taskbar button to flash as well. But I should think you'd remember if you did that. I don't recall any other way to do it in Windows.

[EDIT] Hah, beat me to it, I type too slow, and had to check TweakUI as well.

[BJ_M]

nope -- didnt quit work --

i still get the flashing even when set to no flashing and setting focus to any settings in tweakUI

i got it to behave a bit better ...


really weird -- how it just changed this somehow on its own ...

[Ai Haibara]

Well, while I was running a search to see if there was anything else that could work with the window focus settings in more detail (probably one of the third-party Windows tweakers, like X-Setup (shareware, I think, if it's still around)), I came across a Microsoft bulletin that mentioned something about enabling the speech service without truly configuring it could cause problems including problems with focus, programs quitting/restarting on their own, etc. I didn't think that was the problem you had, though.

It's probably one of those Windows settings that can be easily changed by something else without you choosing to do it, or just one of those things that might be fixed by a reboot.

[BJ_M]

ahh yes -- i should have mentioned ....

it is all working again .....

a couple reboots and all was well ... dont know if it was related , but my usr wireless card acted up the same time and I reinstalled it's driver ...

don't know how the two could be related - but who knows ...

[Ai Haibara]

As far as I'm aware, the taskbar is part of the Explorer process. For me, Explorer's always been the first process to act weird (odd behavior from either the taskbar or windows), or go off in a corner and sulk for the longest time. That's when either quitting and restarting the Explorer process can help (IF the system actually lets you do it), or rebooting.

Yeah, sometimes rebooting once or twice can indeed help 'fix' some problems, so I often suggest trying that.