Focus Issue

[Rory Becker]

I have been using Vista ultimate x64 now for about a month and I am largely
very happy with it.

I have a very strange and annoying bug/feature however.

Every now and again (frequency varies seconds/minutes/hours), I find that
having switched away from 1 application that I can no longer click the original
application (in the background) to bring it back to main focus.

Somethimes this happens even when there is apparently no application in front
of the app I want to use..

The only way around this is to click the tsakbar button of the desired app
or Alt-Tab back to it.

Can anyone tell me why I might be experiencing this strange side effect?

I am multiposting this to security as it seems an aweful lot like when the
UAC kicks in to ask me a question except that the screen does not change
visually.

Thanks in advance for any information

 

[Rory Becker]

I have now managed to narrow down this very strange "Bug"

It apparently happens consistently with any application which has been elevated
due to it's shortcut having the "Run as Administrator" checkbox ticked in
it's shortcut.

The 2 instances I have noticed so far are VS2005 and IIS

VS2005 has the checkbox ticked and IIs inherently needs to be elevated.

Does this help anyone narrow this down?

 

[Rory Becker]

Strange that no-one else has this problem.

Try the following.

Locate Notepad.exe
Right click it and use it's properties pages to ensure that it launches as
administrator
Launch notepad
Launch calc
Now try to click notepad

I cannot do this and I am forced to click the taskbar item for Notepad in
order to access it.

Doesn't anyone have any ideas?

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I most likely have the same problem on Vista 32 and a wired Logitech USB
optical mouse.

For the last years my system worked fine. A couple of weeks ago - I
can't remember any special circumstances - it suddenly happened that I
couldn't activate one or more windows with mouse clicks - or drag/resize
them. It seems the "active state" switches back and forth between two
windows or "levels" (when there is only the taskbar and the desktop)
with each click, somewhat similar to ALT-Tabbing.

Opening and closing the task manager temporarily solves the problem.

It happens randomly and in random intervals. It happens even right at
start-up so that I cannot click on icons in the quickstart menu.

While I e.g. can use the mouse clicks on desktop items, the items in
the taskbar won't react - or vice versa.

I run windows with - say - standard applications, my system is always
up to date, I have no fancy programs/hardware installed other than stuff
from renowned companies as Microsoft, Adobe, Mozzilla, Skype, Logitech,
nvidia-Drivers etc. and one or two games. A virus check didn't reveal
any problems. While playing a mouse driven game I didn't have problems
so far, only on desktop.

I tried closing windows processes, but the 2 or 3 I can close with
still being able to use the computer seem to have no effect.

I'm glad to see I'm not alone, so there might be someone finding the
cause of this. Maybe it was the Vista ServicePack or some other update,
who knows.

Edit: While the problem persists, navigation with the keyboard is
entirely possible.

Here's my dumb question for you: is your mouse battery powered? If so, is
the battery getting weak?

OK, my dumb two questions

It's my only idea.

No, I have another. Try another mouse to find out if the mouse could be
getting sick.