Windows Explorer focus issue: pressing down arrow brings WE to focus

[Adriano Varoli Piazza]

We have a Windows XP network. One of our users recently started
experiencing the following behaviour:
- When an 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
- running a deep antivirus scan (avast), spybot, ccleaner. No relevant
results, and the behaviour continues

But to no avail. Has anyone encountered similar behaviour?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Adriano Varoli Piazza]

We have a Windows XP network. One of our users recently started
experiencing the following behaviour:
- When an 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
- running a deep antivirus scan (avast), spybot, ccleaner. No relevant
results, and the behaviour continues

But to no avail. Has anyone encountered similar behaviour?

Thanks in advance.

Further comments:
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.

Best regards,

 

[Adriano Varoli Piazza]

Further comments:
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.

Further info: I process explorer's verify option on explorer.exe, but
it yielded no useful information.

Best regards,