New applications opening under current window

agent154 · 02 Jan 2010

I don't know quite how to describe this problem other than saying that when I open a new window (office, or any other software), it will open up but appear underneath whatever other window I have focused already. This is especially annoying because it doesn't seem to have been doing this prior to yesterday, when I formatted my system and upgraded from Windows 7 Home Premium to Professional edition. It doesn't even seem to be happening when I open ALL software, but most of it.. For example, CCleaner, and Word for sure will open under whatever window I have focused, even if that window is not maximized.

Anybody have any clues as to why this is happening?

**Capt.Jack Sparrow** · 02 Jan 2010

Hi Agent154, Welcome to SF,

I have seen this issue before it's "Prevent applications from stealing focus"
Unfortunately i didn't find a solution for Windows 7
You could try something that used to work in XP and sometimes in Vista

1, Go To Start > Regedit
2, Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Control Panel > Desktop
4, Right Click and Click on Export, name it Registrybackup and save it
3, On Right side you can see ForegroundLockTimeout
4, Change the ForegroundLockTimeout value to 30d40 (Hexadecimal) or 200000 (Decimal) to 0

The key ForeGroundFlashCount defines the amount of flashes of a window to alert the user where 0 means unlimited.

Also make sure Speech Recognition is off
If this didn't fix Run Game Booster Run that Program this will disable unwanted services

Hope this helps

agent154 · 03 Jan 2010

Indeed this is a strange issue - I noticed after reading your instructions that the taskbar icon doesn't flash even once when I open it up, while the application is opened to the bottom of the stack of windows I already have open. I tried changing the regestry value for ForegroundLockTimeout as you suggested and it did not affect anything unfortunately.

I'll keep looking, however. Thanks.

stormy13 · 03 Jan 2010

Did you log off/log on after making the registry change?

agent154 · 03 Jan 2010

You know, maybe this is a problem localized to CCleaner - i've tested other software and they open fine (most of the time).. but CCleaner always drops down to the desktop. I'll look into the settings for that program.

However, there was the odd time when I would open a word document from a file in explorer, and word would open under the explorer window instead of above it.