Auto changing of windows problem

[Alan Pfaff]

When I use IE I have a problem of my computer automatically unactivating the active window.....ie, when I'm typing the window goes inactive and I have to click on it to continue. This happens each 10 seconds or so and is pretty annoying....any clue as to what could cause this and how to fix it?

Thanks

[Paddy]

I'm not an expert but it sounds like some program which may be running in the background is stealing focus, which can happen even without a new window appearing. I've read a few articles about Gmail's windows stealing focus all the time with Internet Explorer, and people have suggested changing browsers to Mozilla or Firefox, but that seems a bit drastic. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and see what is running, perhaps a lot of it can be terminated. If you do find anything that isn't necessary you should stop it from starting at bootup by using msconfig (click Start > Run > msconfig, then click the startup tab and uncheck anything you don't need). I think there are a few tweaks which can be applied to Windows in general which prevent windows from stealing focus. Maybe some sort of browser sheild like SpywareBlaster or ScriptDefender could help. The problem may not be spyware related but those programs have other little functions that deal with general browser settings as well as security.

I hope this is of some use! lol Good luck.

[Alan Pfaff]

Well....I have disabled all of the start programs in MSCONFIG but, funny thing, something keeps adding a program to the startup list. The program always has a different name but, continually is added. The loss of focus happens again after this event. I guess there's some virus or a bot that's renaming and adding this program to my list.

Thanks for your help though.....guess I'll have to keep looking.