Games don't come back full-screen after alt-tab and iconified in TaskB

[luke76bg]

Hi guys, i have this problem with my games and windows 7. They don't come back to full-screen if i alt-tabbed them. Every game. Theres's something wrong in the full screen mode, also windows live mail have the same problem sometime, i can't get it in full screen

Skyrim

full screen problem - YouTube

tomb raider underworld

full screen problem tomb raider underworld - YouTube

and the specific problem that sometimes happens with windows live mail

full screen problem windows live mail - YouTube

there's a possible solution ?

 

[smarteyeball]

How long has it been like this? Since a recent driver update? Adding a new Desktop gadget etc?

You have quite a few apps running in your system tray. It looks as if when you alt-tab back to the desktop, one of those running apps might be stealing the focus.

As a test, disable most of those running apps before you launch a game to see if it makes a difference.

 

[luke76bg]

it's a recent thing, and it's started when some days ago, i played tomb raider underworld.After that I switched to 12.1 latest driver, hoping to resolve, but nothing. And i have cleaned completely with driver sweeper, just to see if can help.

I try to close all applications,i will report later what will happens

Thanks for the help smarteyeball ^^

 

[luke76bg]

ok i tried to shutdown every single application, i left antivirus and nothing more, and the problem persist, the strange thing is that skyrim, when i close every single application, stop to "run" when i press alt+tab, just like a momentary freeze, and come back to normal when i release alt+tab, if i press ctrl-alt-can to call task manager, in that case i can put it in the task bar. Underworld simple act like before, don't come back to full screen. And yes for the question about the gadget, i have tried trixx, a beta version application form sapphire that can overclock my gpu, and i have installed the gadget that come with this program...i suppose that this could be the problem ? I have uninstalled trixx just to see if the problem was that, and the gadget disappear too..

 

[MrNeeds]

Hi guys, i have this problem with my games and windows 7. They don't come back to full-screen if i alt-tabbed them. Every game. Theres's something wrong in the full screen mode, also windows live mail have the same problem sometime, i can't get it in full screen

Skyrim

full screen problem - YouTube

tomb raider underworld

full screen problem tomb raider underworld - YouTube

and the specific problem that sometimes happens with windows live mail

full screen problem windows live mail - YouTube

there's a possible solution ?

Skyrim and Tomb Raider Underworld don't support alt tabbing, I have tried both games with the same result, and the full screen windows mail, that seems to be isolated to send/recieve state, try keeping it to windowed mode until the mail has finished being retrieved.

 

[luke76bg]

i always used alt-tab with both skyrim and tomb raider underworld, trust me. Skyrim come to full screen back when you press alt-tab when the game is in the task bar. Doens't work if you click on the icon on the task bar alone. Trust me. And the problem is that every single game now act in this way, so don't come back to full screen. Before i had no problem...

 

[smarteyeball]

it's a recent thing, and it's started when some days ago, i played tomb raider underworld.

Hmm. Cause or coincidence? - not sure how that would affect all other fullscreen apps though :huh:

After that I switched to 12.1 latest driver, hoping to resolve, but nothing. And i have cleaned completely with driver sweeper, just to see if can help.

Were you using Trixx for a while without problems, or did you just start using it about the same time this started?

But since it's now uninstalled and it's still happening, it suggests it's not the culprit.

It's a long shot idea, but do you have a restore point that goes back to before this started?

If that dosen't help, I'd uninstall / driversweep the drivers again and reinstall the older Cat version that was working before this started.

(You did run Driversweeper in safe mode didn't you?)

Other than that, I'm out of ideas at the moment

Skyrim and Tomb Raider Underworld don't support alt tabbing,

Skyrim needs to be double Alt-Tabbed for me to get it back properly, but it does work mate.

 

[luke76bg]

yes i have already done driver sweeper in safe mode but i can try again for safe again. And i'm uploading another video that show another kind of error that it's seems related, like windows mail maybe. And i found this :

"http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/windows-7-fullscreen-games-and-desk-apps-losing/602ebbf5-0c5c-471b-aeb5-892a0557c0c7

After doing a lot of reading, I found some registry settings which appear to fix some of the issues I am seeing. All three were found in HKEY_CURRENT_USER->Control Panel->Desktop

ForegroundLockTimeout: This was set to zero for some reason. I deleted the key and rebooted, but it came back set to zero. Therefore I looked up the default value of 200000 (decimal) and set it. After that it stayed.\

I saw two others keys HungAppTimeout, WaitToKillServiceTimeout, and WaitToKillAppTimeout, and all were set to zero. I deleted these and relogged.

I have no idea what set those registry keys to zero, but after putting them back to default, I can now click a minimized fullscreen application, and it comes back immediately. I still can lose focus when in a fullscreen or desktop application, but not as often as before, and now it is usually just poorly behaved apps stealing focus rather than seemingly random events."

This key ForegroundLockTimeout is set to zero on my pc too. And the other are HungAppTimeout set to 100 and WaitToKillAppTimeout set to 1000, i don't have WaitToKillServiceTimeout, maybe can help...yes the problem started in the same time i had installed trixx but it's very strange, i had already used this program in the past without no problem, same with gadget too.

 

[luke76bg]

here's the video

antoher problem relatedsi la s - YouTube

 

[luke76bg]

WORKS! I did the same like the guy in that forum, i deleted the keys HungAppTimeout and WaitToKillAppTimeout and i have set the ForegroundLockTimeout to 200000 now tomb raider underworld, skyrim (but sometimes freeze when i press alt-tab, never acted in this way before...) assassin's creed, comes back to full screen in a snap! I must recreate the keys that i have deleted with proper values just for security ?

 

[luke76bg]

and the strange problems with firefox and windows mail seems gone...

 

[smarteyeball]

If you can set them back to 'original' settings, it wouldn't hurt. (avoid 'surprises' later on.)

I'm still curious what could have caused the problems in the first place though :huh:

At least you got it sorted

And you can re-install Trixx as well.

 

[luke76bg]

maybe some tool to optimize these settings, i have some tool like these, windows 7 ultimate tweaking or something is an example,that program can change these keys for speed up windows. I will check later,but i don't use this program or something like this from ages! And the values was totally incorrect for the keys that i had deleted...i don't know, anyway, now i know what can cause this kind of problems and i know how it can be fixed, in the past i have already had this errors, surely for my non direct fault maybe, and the only solution was a format or a backup. Thanks guys for the help ^_^

 

[smarteyeball]

maybe some tool to optimize these settings, i have some tool like these, windows 7 ultimate tweaking or something is an example,that program can change these keys for speed up windows.Thanks guys for the help ^_^

Protip: Don't use those apps - stick to doing it manually



You did the hard work, but you're welcome mate

 

[luke76bg]

maybe some tool to optimize these settings, i have some tool like these, windows 7 ultimate tweaking or something is an example,that program can change these keys for speed up windows.Thanks guys for the help ^_^

Protip: Don't use those apps - stick to doing it manually



You did the hard work, but you're welcome mate

yes you're right, i have learned my lessons, maybe it's another thing that messed up the whole thing but who knows...now i have to search the correct default values for the deleted keys and fix them. Thanks anyway for the support, it can always help! ^_^