For you Computer Gurus: How do I change this one friggin' setting?

**naaman** · 04-02-2008, 22:58

Okay, so I'm using Vista, and there is a setting that bugs the HELL out of me.

It's that setting that tells the computer to automatically set any window that finishes loading to the active window.

Here's just one issue I have with that: I'll be chatting online, and then, for example, my word processor will finish loading, and all of a sudden, it "pops up" and "takes over" my screen, so that as soon as it does, all of my typing from there on is on the word processor, instead of the chat window. So I have to go back to the chat window and retype what wound up in the word processor.

I looked around in the control panel, but couldn't find anything that seemed to be the right setting/adjustment.

How do I make my computer NOT automatically activate the most recent window?

GRRR... this is annoying.

**Cairo94507** · 04-03-2008, 05:06

Sorry I can't help; I hate VISTA!

**robr** · 04-03-2008, 06:36

It's not Vista specific, it's a problem that's existed for a long, long time and unfortunately there isn't a universal fix for it... in fact there is likely no fix at all. Feel free to read more here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messagev...&enterthread=y

or here

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001011.html

**naaman** · 04-03-2008, 06:59

LAME. It's been over a year since I've spent any time on my desktop PC which has XP... or ME or something... anyway I don't remember having this problem on my desktop. But my laptop gets on my nerves with it!

**0ctan3** · 04-03-2008, 12:35

If a word processor really takes that long to load, then it's time for a faster computer.

**robr** · 04-03-2008, 12:39

Originally Posted by 0ctan3

If a word processor really takes that long to load, then it's time for a faster computer.

or an older version of word. MS makes sure their latest versions of office apps always take a long time to load, no matter what you have for hardware. my quad core with 4gig of memory still takes about 5 seconds to completely load word 2007. it would probably take 2-3x that on most laptops.

**NSX_Dreamer** · 04-03-2008, 12:55

The answer is to upgrade to XP, and then install Tweak UI from Microsoft, which has an option to prevent windows from stealing focus.

**robr** · 04-03-2008, 13:02

Originally Posted by NSX_Dreamer

The answer is to upgrade to XP, and then install Tweak UI from Microsoft, which has an option to prevent windows from stealing focus.

tweakui doesnt work for this kind of thing unfortunately. it will prevent an application from stealing focus only if the app tries to intentionally do it. these microsoft apps just ignore it for the most part. if you look at the links i posted above, people have tried tweakui and it didnt work for these situations. also the stealing focus prevention is enabled by default in xp and vista.

**NSX_Dreamer** · 04-03-2008, 13:08

Originally Posted by robr

tweakui doesnt work for this kind of thing unfortunately. it will prevent an application from stealing focus only if the app tries to intentionally do it. these microsoft apps just ignore it for the most part. if you look at the links i posted above, people have tried tweakui and it didnt work for these situations. also the stealing focus prevention is enabled by default in xp and vista.

Oh I see. Hmm, I wonder if the MAC OS does the same thing. Or Linux.

**Budweiser®** · 04-03-2008, 20:35

Originally Posted by robr

tweakui doesnt work for this kind of thing unfortunately. it will prevent an application from stealing focus only if the app tries to intentionally do it. these microsoft apps just ignore it for the most part. if you look at the links i posted above, people have tried tweakui and it didnt work for these situations. also the stealing focus prevention is enabled by default in xp and vista.

robr, just out of curiousity are you running Vista x64?

**robr** · 04-03-2008, 23:46

Originally Posted by Budweiser®

robr, just out of curiousity are you running Vista x64?

I have a lot of machines, the majority are XP w/sp2 or sp3 RC2. I have 2 running Vista, but x32. while both are capable of x64, i didn't expect to exceed ~4 gig of memory on them and didn't want to deal with lack of x64 driver issues.

**Budweiser®** · 04-04-2008, 05:45

Originally Posted by robr

I have a lot of machines, the majority are XP w/sp2 or sp3 RC2. I have 2 running Vista, but x32. while both are capable of x64, i didn't expect to exceed ~4 gig of memory on them and didn't want to deal with lack of x64 driver issues.

Thats my concern as well. Ive been doing some research at notebookreview for my next laptop purchase and there are some reports there that Vista x64 runs faster than x32, but Im not sure if its worth the hassle.

**robr** · 04-04-2008, 06:12

Originally Posted by Budweiser®

Thats my concern as well. Ive been doing some research at notebookreview for my next laptop purchase and there are some reports there that Vista x64 runs faster than x32, but Im not sure if its worth the hassle.

I don't have any hard facts I can cite to back this up, but my feeling is that unless you have >4 gig of memory (theoretically more like 3.5gig) or the applications you want to run aren't specifically compiled for x64, you really aren't going to gain anything by running x64 and will likely give yourself headaches with device driver related issues. Vista already has enough problems with 32bit drivers.

The two machines I run Vista Ultimate x32 on have been great (one is my main work PC, the other my wife's home PC). I built the one at work, my wifes is a Circuit City $300 Acer. Hers was a little tricky because I had to find drivers for some of the components from sources other than Acer. Acer had rebranded the hardware, making it difficult to find out who actually built the hardware and which chipset was used, but after I got over that hurdle, her PC has been rock solid since (using the Acer drivers, it was rebooting and hanging all the time, especially when she used the SD card reader to copy pics from her camera).

I tried Vista on my own machine at home, also home built but has much older hardware, and it would hang far too often, so I went back to XP on that. IMO, there really is no compelling reason to run Vista. It's slower than XP (though speed is supposed to improve with the general release of Vista SP1, I've heard positive things about SP1 as well), chews up more memory and doesn't really offer anything more (though I do like the DVD creation app in Ultimate and Home Premium that lets me plug in my camcorder and just dump the contents to DVD with nicely created menus, I was using Adobe Premier before that, what a PITA.... I don't have to do a thing with the Vista application).

I run Vista here because I like to try to stay current with technology and also because there are some Enterprise utilities I need that won't run on anything else (Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V manager for example won't run on XP currently. In fact it needs Vista SP1 which isn't even generally available yet).

When I order Dell laptops for people here at work, I always go with XP Pro. I save myself a lot of headaches that way.

**naaman** · 04-04-2008, 08:09

I like then intent of Vista, though, MS may have missed their mark this first time around....

**NSXFRIEND** · 04-04-2008, 09:24

Use Mozilla its open source and better.

**jond** · 04-04-2008, 10:44

I have the same question. You know what will REALLY piss you off. When you've been downloading something for an hour. As you're typing away doing work, it pops up saying its finishing copying AS you're hitting the space bar typing. Download cancels. And you just lost an hour.

Yeah, if you figure it out, let me know!!!

**robr** · 04-04-2008, 11:17

Originally Posted by NSXFRIEND

Use Mozilla its open source and better.

Mozilla doesn't have an operating system last time I checked. I do use Firefox for just about everything, however a new browser isn't going to solve the issue naaman is having :P.