Submission details
Prevent focus stealing while in the act of typing
It can be very annoying when something steals focus away from what you are doing. The worst case for me is typing, where, for example, another window opens and suddenly my keystrokes are being input into a new window.
Add a setting in Keyboard control panel called "Prevent lost focus when typing X quickly" with a slider.
I think that if this were implemented thoughtfully, (for example requiring a certain number of letters to be typed before it flags you as 'typing' and checking that you were typing into a text input area, not keyboard navigating, etc) it could be implemented without creating new issues. Having a setting for it allows different user preferences regarding this behavior.
Medium
Medium
Not fixed
Discussion (7 comments)
That's essentially the same thing, yes, only focused on the Windows Update reboot prompt.
Not only happening in Win 7, it's also happening in Vista (which I guess states the obvious since Win 7 came after Vista). A friend of mine with a DELL laptop has brought his computer in for service - only to be told there's "Nothing Wrong" with his computer. I told him the computer is fine, it's the Operating System.
So far, the only online advice I've seen suggests to either
A) Edit the registry - which is a waste of time since my registry key setting to "prevent focus" is set as it should be, yet, focus gets stolen almost every time I'm trying to type in credentials to log into email (from Firefox).
B) Use TweakUI to tell apps not to steal focus - which was an outright fail. It would not install - Tweak UI is made for Win XP and since I don't know how all that much about program mucking (or is it "muckery") I can't get TweakUI to install under Windows 7.
If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably a Windows service running in the background that overly-monopolizes the CPU at that moment, thus stealing focus away from your current APP but not putting you into another app.
Very annoying bug to say the least.
adamt222: http://www.tweakvista.com/
Thanks xombie for the link, however, I don't think it will help. Programs such as these are GUI tools that help you edit the registry without actually touching the registry itself. They are good tools unto themselves, but I don't see the value in using a 3rd party GUI tool to set a registry key that is already (as per specification) set correctly.
What I'd like to see is Microsoft taking care of this, or at the very least, submitting a workaround (for example tell the public about a service that can be shut off to prevent focus stealing) for a temporary period of time.
Thanks anyway for your link- Adam
Comment edited on February 21, 2010, 3:15am
This is still a problem in Windows 7. Windows itself just popped up an interrupting window asking if I wanted to overwrite files, for instance.
xombie wrote on January 23, 2010, 4:16am
Someone just posted the same thing...