Good morning, all!

Xp sp2 - all of a sudden IE loses focus, when I have more than one page open, usually 5 or 6, they keep opening by themselves. It's awful because sometimes when I want to close one I ended up closing another, it changes fast, or when I'm reading or writting in one, the other show up. This is so annoying, how can I fix this? I have TweakUI set to "prevent application to stealing focus" by flashing, but it seems not work.
Thank you for your attention
Nana

Hi Nana,

Sounds like you're getting popup windows which steal the focus from the current window. Do you run a firewall and antivirus on your system? There are some very good (free) programs in our Downloads section - in particular Zone Alarm or Sygate for a firewall, and AVG or Antivir personal Edition for antivirus. Only 1 firewall and 1 antivirus program should be run on a system.

Run the free online scan at Trend - http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_corp.asp

Run one of the online trojan scans here -
http://scan.sygatetech.com/pretrojanscan.html
http://windowsecurity.com/trojanscan

Download Adaware SE from /downloads-file-451.html . Run it, click Check for Updates Now. When you have updated click Scan Now and run a Full System Scan.

Download Spybot S&D from /downloads-file-108.html . Unzip it and run it, click Search for Updates, then click Search and Destroy.

Download aČ Free from http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4281.html . Run it, click Search for Updates, then click Scan.

Download Ccleaner from http://www.ccleaner.com/ccdownload.php . Run it and click Search for Updates. Go to Options and click the Settings tab. Uncheck the box against Only Delete Files in Windows Temp Folders Older than 48 Hours, then click OK. Click Run Cleaner. Please note that running CCleaner will force you to enter passwords for any sites which require them - make sure you know them.

If any of these scans find files which can't be deleted then try running the scan in Safe Mode. Details of how to access Safe Mode can be found here - http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ts...ec_doc_nam

Please post back with results.

Mister2

Good afternoon, Mister
I think my Brazilian English wasn't good enough, I didn't made myself very clear to you. I don't have any suspicious or unexpected popup windows open. The ones that are losing focus are the ones I open myself. For example: I have 3 or 4 windows opened and I'm reading one of them. Suddendy, the other ones start to maximize by themselves and I must go to the taskbar to go back to the one I was. It's very annoying, It wasn't that way before, and I have no idea what could have changed the good behaviour: the pages are minimized untill I open them.
I use the xp firewal ( I tried the Sygate once and it kept showing errors in the installation process, and I realized that I don't understand this thing well, so I gave up) and NAV 2005, Ad-Aware, Spyboot, HijackThis, and Apyware Blaster, all of them updated and running every Monday. (How paranoid am I?!).
Anyway, thanks a lot for your help.
Have a good day,
Nana

Hi Nana,

Your English is excellent - it is the way I read it which was at fault

I have not heard of this problem before, but follow the instructions in this link and see if it works for you:
http://www.technewsgroups.net/link.aspx?url=http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;313176&Product=winxp

It seems that the problem may also be caused by Java. Open IE and go to Tools, Internet Options and click the Advanced tab. Scroll down to Microsoft VM and uncheck Java Console and JIT Compiler. Reboot and see if the problem is still there. If there is no change then put your settings back to the way they were.

You could download the FireFox browser from here - www.mozilla.org - and see if this behaves in a similar manner. FireFox is a more secure browser and is very popular with our members.

By the way, you are not paranoid. Sadly these tools are necessary today to keep your system clean. I would suggest adding aČ Free from http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4281.html to your collection. I would also suggest you try Zone Alarm firewall as the MS firewall only blocks traffic in to your computer - anything trying to send data out is ignored.

Let me know how it goes.

Mister2

Hi, Mister
Thanks for the excuse you found for my bad English...
You know, I've never heard about this also and I can't find the answer anywhere. But this is driving me crazy: many times I close the wrong window and lose my own focus. I have Sun Java along with Microsoft VM for quite a while, both checked and they seem to get along together, but I did what you suggested and will let you know the results later. I heard good things about Firefox but I'm a webdesigner and I'm used to IE to test my pages. Good for the humankind that don't depend on me (a little afraid of the unknown) or we'd be all living in caves now! Maybe someday I'll try it.
I'll keep searching an answer and when and if I find it I'll let you know.
Thanks for now,
Nana

Are you sure it is just IE? What if you open a Word doc, anti-virus application, and several other applications. Do any of them lose focus too?

_________________
Bill, AFE7Ret
Freedom is NOT Free!

Hi, Mister
It's only IE and unchecking the MS VM did nothing. Still searching down here!
Nana

In TweakUI, under Mouse, X-Mouse, ensure both blocks are unchecked.

_________________
Bill, AFE7Ret
Freedom is NOT Free!

Good morning, Bill!
Both are unchecked. I can't think of anything else. This is really annoying. All I have done is searching for an answer, because I can't read the pages this way. I'll lt you know.
Thanks for your suggestion,
Nana

I have the same problem sometimes like when in Amazon , I always surf and work with many windows and as soon as a page loads in Amazon it steals foucs although I tweakedUI to only flash .

If anyone got a real solution to that please post it here ..

This seems to be a fairly common problem with no common solution. The only advice I've found so far is a registry edit.

Please remember to back up your registry before editing it, as a single mistake could render your system inoperable. To back up, go to Start, Run, type regedit and click OK. In the regedit window go to File, Export and choose a name and location to back up to. Make sure the box next to Export Range - All is checked and then click Save.

In regedit, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Note down the value (in the right hand pane) for the ForegroundLockTimeout. The default value is 0x00030d40(200000). If it is already set to this value, try changing it to 0.

To change the value, right click on the word ForegroundLockTimeout ansd select Modify. Enter the appropriate value (0 or 00030d40) in the Value Data box, make sure Hexadecimal Mode is selected and click OK. Close regedit (no need to save changes).

Note that the '0' character in this value is zero, not the letter 'O'.

Let me know if this helps.

It will be interesting to see if this works - I saw that hack but noted it was for all windows applications and the reason for me asking if it was IE only and not Word, AV, etc. Nana's complaint is for open IE sessions only. At this point, I see no harm in trying since the default is known and restorable.

_________________
Bill, AFE7Ret
Freedom is NOT Free!

Hello Nana,

There are some utility programs available that prevent other programs/windows from "stealing" focus from the window you are working in. A program like "BringWinTop" might prevent that from happening in your particular situation:

http://www.wlargroup.com/freeware_info1.htm#BringWinTop

Good morning all!
Back to surfing today after a while and the problem is still there: just IE and most of the sites do this, not all of them - 70%. I tried to search in their source code to see if could be some kind of script but found nothing strange and nothing unnusually in commom among them. I will try the regedit part suggested and let you know.
Thanks a lot, all the best
Nana

I must say, it is odd to only happen with IE and not other applications too.

Please keep us update - this is a curious one.

_________________
Bill, AFE7Ret
Freedom is NOT Free!