(slightly OT) switching focus between applications

[Bob]

There is an aspect of Windows design that I've always disagreed with, and
that is its focus-switching behavior. I'll be typing something, and another
application pops up a message box right in the middle of what I'm doing.
Maybe I'll even hit enter for a line break and instead answer a yes/no
dialogue that I didn't even get a chance to read. Or, perhaps I ctrl-click
on a web link and go off to do something else while I wait for it to load.
Bing, the web page steals focus and comes to the front when its ready, again
over anything I'm doing at the moment.

Now under some circumstances when a window wants focus, it will simply flash
its place holder in the task bar. I want Windows to force this behavior
always - no application should be allowed to steal focus from another one,
ever. If I go to launch an application and it's taking a minute, I want
Windows to respect that I've given focus to another application and make
that sucker wait and flash in the task bar instead of popping it up in front
of me.

This has bothered me enough where I would devote some time to actually
trying to do something about it in code. I don't suppose that's possible, is
it?

Bob

 

[Mark Jones]

You might be able to do this with a system wide hook.
Of course, there may be a registry setting that will do the same thing.