Windows 7 new apps windows with no focus

25
2014-05
  • Michal M

    I've only installed my Windows 7 Ultimate last night.

    Got a problem with new windows focus.
    Problem only applies to windows opened through keyboard shortcuts.

    I've got MS Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 and it has app shortcut keys, like Calc, Mail, Browser, etc.

    Whenever I use it (I've got latest driver installed) new app window opens but it's not in focus. It opens in background which is well annoying, because I have to click the window or Alt+Tab it.

    Anyone had similar issue and/or knows how to resolve it?

    UPDATE

    It looks as if it was driver issue.
    One solution is to use AutoHotKey which is suggested in other thread Jared pointed out. This seems like the most reasonable one as well for the moment.

    I haven't gone with it, though. What I've done is I unistalled the driver and installed it again. I also have Logitech mouse for which the driver I installed after they keyboard's one. By re-installing keyboard driver I put kind of "on top" of the Logitech one and, although I am not sure if it's related at all, they keyboard button shortcuts seems to work much better (not always though!).

    Thanks for your help fellas.

    • Answers
  • Jared Harley

    I have this issue with a Microsoft keyboard on a Windows XP machine as well. It seems to be a problem with either the Microsoft IntelliType software or keyboard driver, and it seems to be just the calculator button.

    One "solution" from the Windows 7 Taskforce website is to tap the key twice to pull the calculator to the front.

    This same behavior also appears when the calculator key is set to launch another program - see Issue 302 for SpeedCrunch.

  • Joshua

    Sounds like a driver bug, actually. Is the your driver's release date AFTER the release of Windows 7? Not everybody -- including microsoft -- has update their drivers yet.

    Alternatively, is there a setting in the driver somewhere that allows you to choose whether a window is in front or not?

  • AnonJr

    Do you have other applications open when this happens? And does it happen if there's nothing open?

    I ask because Windows 7 is really good for preventing applications from stealing focus if you're in the middle of something.


    • Related Question

    Windows Explorer focus issue: pressing down arrow brings WE to focus
  • Adriano Varoli Piazza

    One of my Windows machines recently started experiencing the following behaviour:

    When a windows explorer window is open (it can be the only window open on the desktop) but not focused, pressing the down arrow key brings it to focus. If it is minimized, it is brought to the foreground, no matter what the program currently in focus is.

    We've tried

    • another keyboard
    • using software to check for hidden keyboard shortcuts,
    • searching through the Registry for the string 'focus',
    • googling for it, of course (e.g. for 'pressing down focuses window' or similar queries)
    • asking in serverfault.com (closed as 'not sysadmin related')
    • asking on http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
    • running a deep antivirus scan (avast), spybot, ccleaner. No relevant results, and the behaviour continues
    • used process explorer's verify option on explorer.exe, but it gave no useful information.
    • searched in TweakUI for anything likely
    • searched the accessibility options
    • tried setting and unsetting focus-follows-mouse inside TweakUI.

    This issue appears on XP SP3, and I did try searching this group, but the problems I found were usually of the 'Explorer not focusing correctly' on something or other.

    Has anyone encountered similar behaviour?


    • Related Answers
  • user207629

    I had a similar problem, except my explorer windows focused on pressing key , without any other key in combination (like +). It also had been solved by turning off some Start Up programs from msconfig. Disabled applications:

    • AdobeARM
    • FacebookUpdate
    • GoogleUpdate
    • Reader_sl
  • ajm

    It sounds like this is probably an accessibility 'feature', but I can't find anything specific about what you're experiencing on the page (here). I think you'll want to look along those lines, though.

  • Adriano Varoli Piazza

    Solved! It was an issue of a program loaded to the user's profile at startup. The problem didn't manifest itself with another profile.

    What we ended up disabling with msconfig:

    • the nvidia processes at startup
    • a multiuser cleanup process
    • a lotus notes process for diagnostics