Snow Leopard desktop - I want two files from two different applications open at the same time. Won't let me

Question

I want two files open at once on the desktop. However when I click on one, it opens and the other minimizes.

What can I do?

Answer 1

Have you per chance turned on "Single App Mode"? This hidden preference causes Mac OS X to hide all applications but the current active one.

You can tell by running the following command in Terminal.app:

defaults read com.apple.dock single-app

If it prints a 0then it is not turned on. If it prints a 1 then yes, it is turned on.

You can disable this trick by running:

defaults write com.apple.dock single-app 0