Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: whels on June 28, 2011, 03:22:55 PM

Title: Random tabbing out of progs
Post by: whels on June 28, 2011, 03:22:55 PM
for awhile now ive been having windows self tab our of games or desktop windows by its self. When in a full screen game it will
minimize the game  and send me to desktop, if im surfing the web or doing something in a window on desktop it will
tab off the window im on.  Nothing shows up new as activated as a prog  in taskbar or popup window, just tabs out of
what im doing. any ideas?

XP Pro all up to date
Quad core 9550
ATI 5850  latest drivers
OCZ Vertex 2 SSD (OS and main progs run)
Raptor 300gig (data drive)
Corsair 850 PSU
No OC on anything.



Whels
Title: Re: Random tabbing out of progs
Post by: Delirium on June 28, 2011, 03:30:21 PM
Imho, you have something running in the background to cause that problem.
Title: Re: Random tabbing out of progs
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on June 28, 2011, 04:41:26 PM
Imho, you have something running in the background to cause that problem.

Yep time for a thorough malware / virus scan and system cleanup.
Title: Re: Random tabbing out of progs
Post by: whels on June 28, 2011, 05:13:35 PM
Yep time for a thorough malware / virus scan and system cleanup.

did both, all is clean
Title: Re: Random tabbing out of progs
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on June 28, 2011, 05:20:58 PM
did both, all is clean

Obviously not, a clean windows won't mess with your tabs.
Title: Re: Random tabbing out of progs
Post by: whels on June 28, 2011, 05:28:40 PM
dont know why ieven bothered posting.

lock thread please
Title: Re: Random tabbing out of progs
Post by: 100Coogn on June 28, 2011, 05:44:39 PM
I think it was my Windows Update that used to Tab me out all the time.
I have that disabled, and just manually check for updates.
Not saying that's your issue, but it was mine.

Good luck
Coogan
Title: Re: Random tabbing out of progs
Post by: gyrene81 on June 28, 2011, 06:41:51 PM
Obviously not, a clean windows won't mess with your tabs.
:rolleyes:

whels, check your task manager the next time that happens, sometimes it's a "legitimate" background processing kicking off. check to make sure windows update is turned off, or at least set to a date and time that isn't while you might be gaming. anti-virus, flash player, itunes, quicktime, java, just to name a few automatically update in the background unless you specifically turn that option off in the programs, and they can minimize a game if they kick off and take cpu priority.
Title: Re: Random tabbing out of progs
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on June 29, 2011, 03:19:08 AM
:rolleyes:

whels, check your task manager the next time that happens, sometimes it's a "legitimate" background processing kicking off. check to make sure windows update is turned off, or at least set to a date and time that isn't while you might be gaming. anti-virus, flash player, itunes, quicktime, java, just to name a few automatically update in the background unless you specifically turn that option off in the programs, and they can minimize a game if they kick off and take cpu priority.

iTunes, Java, AV.. all these will show activity when the tabbing is done. Whels should be able to spot which process is grabbing screen attention quite easy. Since he didn't see any obvious cause for this it must mean that either his system is messed up and a background process is interfering with his other processes unintended or he has a malicious hidden software that the scans he performed failed to detect (no tool finds all exploits).

His best bet is to disable all unnecessary startup crap from msconfig autostart programs and see if the problem continues. Nothing really NEEDS to start automatically upon startup, I would temporarily disable any software firewalls and antiviruses too. Next step would be to disable any non-ms processes from services.msc and a third step would be a total reinstall because if the previous won't work his system is hosed. Either a malware or registry corruption.

If malware is suspected, the latest rootkits cannot be reliably removed without clearing up boot sector / disk format. Otherwise he can try to reinstall over the old windows without doing format which should save a lot of trouble. Would only need to reinstall a few badly made programs that rely on registry to work.
Title: Re: Random tabbing out of progs
Post by: zack1234 on June 29, 2011, 03:55:21 AM
Yes disable windows update my pc was doing the same tabbing down to desktop, i don't remember putting it back on must be getting old :old:

windows have been putting lots of updates recently as well
Title: Re: Random tabbing out of progs
Post by: clerick on June 29, 2011, 04:05:39 AM
What about possible hardware issues?  A bit of a stretch but it could just be something as simple as a bad keyboard causing this. <Windows Key> + M will shrink all windows, maybe a glitch is causing a <SHIFT> to register as a <windows key> now and then?