Something steals focus when opening new email in Outlook

Question

Have noticed this a month or so ago. When i first open Outlook in the morning and hit new email or reply first and start typing after a second focus goes somewhere else and it stops typing and i have to click again in the email. Happens only on the first email after Outlook launch. Still annoying. Maybe some add-on is doing that. The only add-in that has updated recently was Zoom Outlook Plugin and i have tried disabling it, but it didn't help. I think this started after one of Office updates in March. Anyone else seeing this?

Answer 1

Hi @Oleg Kazak ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

Considering that you mentioned that you updated Office in March, what's the version of your Outlook? (File > Office Account > About Outlook). Please make sure you have upgraded your Outlook to the latest version.
And if this issue happens on other programs? To test this, you could try to type in a Word file or Excel file to see if the focus disappears.

If this happens only on the outlook client, and considering that you mentioned it might be an add-in, it is suggested that you try to start outlook in safe mode(win+R>type: outlook /safe) to check whether it works normally. If it can run normally in safe mode, you need to disable all the add ins and check which add ins cause it one by one. If there is such a problem in safe mode, you could try to fix the outlook program. If there is still a problem after the outlook program is repaired, considering the possible third-party security programs in the system, it is suggested that you temporarily shut down or uninstall it, and perform a clean boot in Windows to check whether the problem exists.

Hope the above is helpful to you. Please contact us if you have any questions!

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Answer 2

Hi @Oleg Kazak ,

Thanks for your reply and update. Sorry to hear that your issue still continues.

I did some more researches about your issue in the past few days and found more possible workarounds.

• Some newer versions of hardware drivers such as mouse drivers may steals focus in Outlook. Please check if you have updated your drivers recently and see if we could get some new discoveries.
• Editing ForegroundLockTimeout registry key could help some users resolve their similar issue. If necessary, it is suggested for you to try to modify its value as 0 to see if the issue could be better.
  Path: Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
  Key: ForegroundLockTimeout
  Value: 0
  (Note: Serious problems can occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Before making changes, back up the registry to restore it in case something goes wrong.)
  

Hope this can be helpful.

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