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Sometimes, when I select a click a program on the Windows 7 taskbar it won't appear (it doesn't gain focus and remains behind other open windows), and the icon will flash and turn orange. This happens reasonably frequently, and I've had it happen on two separate Windows installs on different machines. It just happened now and the only programs I have with active windows are Chrome, WMP and Explorer (2). It happened when I clicked Explorer.

Once this has happened to one window, it affects all windows, and the only way I can switch between programs is by finding the window manually or using Windows+Tab. The only way I've come across to get the computer to snap out of this annoying behaviour is to restart the machine. Is there a way of stopping it?

Edit
Here's a video of it happening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12OxKK0kM4

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I think this is a bug in Explorer... it's happened to me too, randomly. – Mehrdad Feb 4 at 22:35
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This appears to be focus stealing prevention not working correctly in Windows 7. This isn't exclusive to Explorer but is likely to be a problem with the Desktop Window Manager. – DragonLord Feb 5 at 3:52
Happened to my girlfriend's laptop, she never restarted her laptop (only hibernating and resuming) for weeks, and it disappear upon restarting. And what do you know, it just happened to me too, in a fresh install to boot, and restarting Explorer (I used the Ctrl-Shit-RightClick Start menu to exit it, but I suppose simply end tasking would do) fix it. But yeah, maybe it will happen again after long running. – Martheen Cahya Paulo Mar 14 at 3:41
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4 Answers

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Ah, that video makes it more clear and even your mouse cursor icon seems to have issues, I would suggest:

  • Try updating video drivers.

  • Try disabling/enabling the Desktop Window Manager service.

  • Try disabling/enabling Aero.

  • Use ShellExView and try to disable non-Microsoft shell extensions, one might be bad behaving.

  • Try creating a new user account and migrating your stuff there.

As a last resort, I think you might need to reinstall...

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The mouse cursor icon is just due to the recording software I'm using, normally it's fine. I have the latest drivers, and restarting explorer/dwm doesn't make the problem go away, only a restart fixes it. – fredley Mar 26 '11 at 11:26
And the other suggestions? – Tom Wijsman Mar 26 '11 at 12:14
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It hasn't happened for a while, and I don't know what causes it so can't reproduce the error. When it happens again I'll let you know. – fredley Mar 26 '11 at 12:18
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The flashing orange taskbar button is basically the application asking for attention. You then need to click on the orange button in order to give that application the focus. The taskbar icon will only flash a few times, but the orange highlight should remain until you respond by selecting the icon.

You can Change the Count of Flashes by using regedit to navigate to :
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\CONTROL PANEL\DESKTOP
and setting ForeGroundFlashCount to the wanted number. Unfortunately, the value 0 means infinite flashes.

You can try changing the color by using another taskbar theme, but Microsoft will not let you stop the flashing.

The puzzling part in your video is that a called application doesn't automatically get the focus. It might be that you have run against another Microsoft gotcha, where the called application cannot get the focus because the mouse is elsewhere.

Go to Control Panel -> ease of access -> ease of access center -> make mouse easier to use, and uncheck "Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse", then OK.

Check also in the registry value of ForegroundLockTimeout in the key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
try the values of zero and also hexadecimal 30d40.

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Did you watch the video? I know why the taskbar flashes, but this answer is completely unrelated to my question. – fredley Mar 26 '11 at 10:32
Your video at first looked normal to me, but then not so much. So I have added another possibility to my answer. – harrymc Mar 26 '11 at 11:10
The mouse is at the taskbar, clicking the application to try and gain focus! I'm sorry, your answer still doesn't address the problem. – fredley Mar 26 '11 at 11:24
Yes it does address the problem : the taskbar itself is a window, of course. Try this, as well as the new possibility I have added. – harrymc Mar 26 '11 at 13:27
But it's not turned on! – fredley Mar 26 '11 at 13:29
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Could you try to close some programs from the tray? They may be interfering with the normal behaviour of the taskbar. I've also read that having certain usb devices connected during startup may cause the problem.

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Which USB devices? I'd be interested to see your source for that information. – fredley Mar 25 '11 at 22:02
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up vote -1 down vote

I believe this issue might be a bug in Pidgin.

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Any chance of linking us to a bug report or anything? A fix perhaps? – Simon Sheehan Feb 16 at 1:11
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