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Windows 10 - Focus taken away from my active application/window. Sometimes taskbar/desktop pops up and takes priority

Anonymous
2023-01-22T15:19:24+00:00

Hello everyone.

For a while now I've had an issue where focus is taken away from my active window, be this a game, webpage or media player. Sometimes it goes to desktop, sometimes the taskbar pops up and sometimes for a split second another window pops up.

Occassionally, it is as if I've alt+tab'd out of the window and need to click on the window again straight away, other times it goes to desktop and need to wait a few seconds before opening it up again. Very frustrating!

I have spent hours and hours trying to troubleshoot and fix this but it still occurs.

I have tried every possible fix you can find online, short of full windows re-install.....I've gone into the services application and disabled all third party apps in attempts to identify what is causing this, as well as running DISM and SFC restore health commands in the command prompt window.

I have also disabled game mode and one drive sync amongst loads of other things I don't need.

Whenever the loss of focus/desktop flickers happens, I go into the event viewer and in the logs I see the 'Audit Success' Microsoft Windows security auditing task.....

Could this be the issue? If so, how do I resolve this? Is a complete windows re-install my only option now?

If it helps - One thing I have not done is turn off Windows Defender Firewall completely in the control panel. I have a credible third party anti-virus that has a firewall, should I turn off windows firewall in case it could be causing some kind of interference between the two?

Any help is much appreciated!

Thank you

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-01-29T21:00:53+00:00

    Hi BenOwen26，

    Welcome to Microsoft Community.

    I opened the event viewer on my computer and found that there were a lot of Audit Success records on the security page. These records themselves were not error problems.

    Regarding the situation you encountered, I suggest that you also try to create a local account and log in to the system with the new account:

    Create a local user or administrator account in Windows - Microsoft Support

    In addition, I would like to confirm with you that when did this problem start to appear?

    If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to let me know.

    Best Regards,

    Manson - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

    Hello,

    In response to the above, I have tried using an offline account for a few days and have not experienced the issues mentioned in the original post.

    Does this suggest there may be something wrong with the microsoft account on the computer? Is there a common issue that my be causing this or is there little I can do to identify the root cause?

    Any help is appreciated. Thank you

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-01-24T11:59:01+00:00

    Hi Manson,

    Thank you for the response.

    Yes, I understand that those audit tasks were all fine, I was wondering if potentially I had a certain setting active that made them steal focus away from my active window.

    I will create a local account and see if the issue persists, thanks for the info.

    As for when it started to happen, I can't recall an exact date but it's been at least 6 months now. Started when I began playing a few older games.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-01-30T17:45:53+00:00

    Thanks again for the quick response. I shall try your suggestion and see if it works

    Take care

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-01-30T01:22:18+00:00

    This is most likely due to a problem with the original Microsoft account on your computer. I suggest you go back to Microsoft account and log in to the system, then click Start - Settings - Account, check whether there is an option to switch to the local account in the account page, please switch to the local account (this is different from creating a new local account before). Then log in again using the Microsoft account on the same page (account page) to see if the problem is resolved.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-01-23T07:57:34+00:00

    Hi BenOwen26，

    Welcome to Microsoft Community.

    I opened the event viewer on my computer and found that there were a lot of Audit Success records on the security page. These records themselves were not error problems.

    Regarding the situation you encountered, I suggest that you also try to create a local account and log in to the system with the new account:

    Create a local user or administrator account in Windows - Microsoft Support

    In addition, I would like to confirm with you that when did this problem start to appear?

    If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to let me know.

    Best Regards,

    Manson - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments