AH minimizes to tool bar when playing

[flippz]

I have seen others speak of this, and mine as well does this during game play.  when I open the game and begin about 5 min into it will do it about twice.  Then after that its random but at least once every thirty min. or so.  No other programs do this, ie. il2 or other games.  I have one computer at the house and one at the office and both do it while AH is running. 
I had a guy, who know how to turn a computer on and off, which means hes way more educated than I, look at the lap top at the office and he cant find any programs running in the back ground that will cause this. Was just wondering, as I said I have seen others question and comment about this.

thanks
 

[oboe]

I've seen this behavior on my machine as well.  Once it happens, it seems to not happen again for that session.

Often times its when I'm working in the hangar - I'll click something on the clipboard, for example to select a skin - and bam!  AH minimizes.

I don't think its happened to me in flight...

[Skuzzy]

You guys need to understand how Windows works.  When the game is minimized, it is Windows doing it.  Not the game.  Windows does this when another application asserts itself as the primary application.

Windows sends the game a message when it minimizes us.  While we can send a message to Windows, notifying it we are minimizing, it is only done in response to a specific keystroke sequence (Alt-Tab).

If you are sure you are not hitting the Alt-Tab keys, then there is something else asserting itself as primary application on your computers causing the game to be minimized.

[oboe]

Thanks for the explanation, Skuzzy.

In the cases I'm referring to, I can absolutely say with certainty its not because I have used Alt-Tab.  It's unexpected but corresponds to me clicking the mouse on something.   Suddenly I'm back to the desktop and have to click on the AH icon in the task bar to get back in game.

If it happens again, is there anywhere I can look to see what application has just asserted itself?  I don't run any other applications concurrently with AH when I play, but could it be anti-virus, or the Steam agent, or something like that?

Hasn't been too much of a bother to me but I thought I'd mention it when I learned it happens to others as well...

[Skuzzy]

We have noticed Steam does get aggressive about asserting itself from time to time.

I am not aware of any clean way to tell who is asserting itself as the primary application.  Normally, well behaved applications will open on the desktop when they assert themselves.

[flippz]

thanks for the reply skuzzy,  I am certain its not a key stroke, as most times it minimizes while no keys are being touched.  as I said earlier I had a guy that is fluent in computers look at mine and we actually pulled up other stuff with no issues on it minimizing while they were running.  pulled up aces high and in the first 5 min it min.  and then twice in thirty min.  90% of the time its a real non issue other than pulling it back up but the 10% when I'm fighting or dropping bombs sucks 

[oboe]

I concur here also - it may be a Windows thing as Skuzzy indicates, but it has only occurred for me when running AH3.  I spend a lot of time in Photoshop, or the Opera web browser - but have only experienced the minimizing in AH3.  It doesn't occur as frequently on my machine as it does for flippz though...

[Skuzzy]

And the things you are describing are not running DirectX which is shared with Windows.  DirectX is a different beast. 

Again, the only way we get minimized occurs when Windows sends a Windows message telling us to minimize.  The Alt-Tab key combination is a Windows system key combination.  We do not capture any of the system keys, so when you press alt-tab, you are actually causing Windows to tell us to minimize.

There is no mechanism in the game which would cause the game to minimize on its own.  Never has been.

[oboe]

OK, it happened again during the scenario yesterday.  I'd just hit / to bring up the radio bar and clicked in the text area of the bar and AH was immediately minimized and I was at the desktop.  Since it was a scenario, I'd shut down extra processes that I often leave up - CCleaner, Steam, my Brother printer utility.  So I was running fairly lean, for me.

I brought up Task Manager and put together this composite image of two different task manager screenshots, showing all the processes I had going in a single image:



I wonder, could it be related to TrackIR?

[The Fugitive]

If it was trackIR a lot of people would be having the issue. Check into the raptr_im stuff. What I read is malware is sometimes disguised as that file

[oboe]

OK I uninstalled Raptr.  I've gotten rid of it before but I think it returns when I update my AMD driversand use express setup.

Thanks!

[Rocco]

I used to have the same issue, game would randomly minimize with no pop ups or other notification. I finally tracked it down to my anti-virus software checking for updates. Not actually updating, just checking. I turned auto update off and haven't had an issue since. just have to remember to manually update every so often. Something to check anyway.

[oboe]

I used to have the same issue, game would randomly minimize with no pop ups or other notification. I finally tracked it down to my anti-virus software checking for updates. Not actually updating, just checking. I turned auto update off and haven't had an issue since. just have to remember to manually update every so often. Something to check anyway.

Thanks Rocco.  Were yours initiated by a mouse click?  Mine occur infrequently but always in repsonse to me clicking the mouse on something - aircraft skin in the hangar, radio text box, etc.

[Rocco]

Thanks Rocco.  Were yours initiated by a mouse click?  Mine occur infrequently but always in repsonse to me clicking the mouse on something - aircraft skin in the hangar, radio text box, etc.

No I don't think so Oboe. Mine was fairly random and fairly frequent but I didn't notice any common event. Often happened as I was trying to line up on someone but that was just my bad luck.

[Bear69]

This is happening to me as well.... sometimes it's not even with a mouse click... seemed like even a joystick input could cause it... really strange i have not been able to pin it down yet