Algor Posted November 16, 2009 Report Posted November 16, 2009 I've been annoyed as hell by this for a long time and didn't know what to search to fix it. Now I've found it :megaman: Scenario: A human being is typing or doing something that requires focus on a certain window, but then they go to launch a new program. To stay productive, they go back and continue typing or whatever they were doing while the new program is loading. When the program is finished loading, it steals the focus away and whatever was being done is now being done in the new active program, which often has screws things up pretty bad. http://www.dragondrop.com/windows/windows002.asp Open your favorite registry editor. Navigate to this key: HKEY CURRENT USER\Control Panel\Desktop. In the right details pane, double click the item ForegroundLockTimeout. In the value data field, set a hexadecimal value of 00030d40. Click OK and close the registry editor. I found this site that shows what registry key to edit that prevents that from happening. Pretty safe and easy, and should have pretty good benefits on productivity. Cheers! Quote
robert.briscoe Posted November 16, 2009 Report Posted November 16, 2009 Cool! 3DS Max does this all the time and it really pisses me off, gonna try it now Quote
Mazy Posted November 16, 2009 Report Posted November 16, 2009 Oooh nice, might try it out on my work machine~ Quote
Warby Posted November 16, 2009 Report Posted November 16, 2009 will try this the whole focus stealing of launching applications is fucked up awful design Quote
robert.briscoe Posted November 17, 2009 Report Posted November 17, 2009 Hmmm didnt work for me with MAX Quote
alecmoody Posted November 18, 2009 Report Posted November 18, 2009 Robert: It works for me with max 2009 on vista 64. Maybe double check that the hex value actually got changed since vista has all those file permissions/admin access 'features'. Quote
Furyo Posted November 25, 2009 Report Posted November 25, 2009 The value of these few words must be in the billions of dollars worth of hours saved for mankind. You win the Internets today. Quote
Jetsetlemming Posted November 26, 2009 Report Posted November 26, 2009 You can do the same with Tweak UI in XP, and set alternate behaviors like flashing the taskbar tab instead. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Down ... rtoys.mspx As well as a few other neat things like remove that curved arrow Windows puts at the corner of shortcut icons, make holding a mouse over a window give that window focus instead of needing to click it (would also help with the stealing focus issue), disable auto-play on removable media instead of just CDs, also disable it by drive letter (important for security), etc. Dunno if there's anything like this for Vista or 7 though Quote
⌐■_■ Posted November 26, 2009 Report Posted November 26, 2009 The value of these few words must be in the billions of dollars worth of hours saved for mankind. You win the Internets today. QFT Quote
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