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I'm having a problem where I select a window but it won't come to the foreground. This mostly happens with Chrome, but I've also had it happen with folder windows and other programs. Example.

I can fix it for a short while by restarting my computer. At first I thought it was a Chrome problem, so I uninstalled and reinstalled it. However, I'm now noticing it between multiple programs.

Anyone have an idea of what's going on? I was able to find some information about this happening on Windows 7. I tried all of those suggestions I could find (most involved editing a registery value. No luck.

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3 Answers 3

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Are you using Synergy?

Update for Microsoft Windows (KB3031432) seems to be the culprit in combination with Synergy...

http://synergy.askbot.com/question/838/windows-81-window-focus-problem/

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    Yep. I believe this is the problem. I can stop synergy and get rid of the problem. I guess I'll wait for an update to synergy since I don't want to uninstall a windows update.
    – Jacob Carter
    Feb 18, 2015 at 16:14
  • You can follow the status of this bug on Github
    – nizzle
    Feb 18, 2015 at 20:16
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I was experiencing excactly the same problem since last week. It is most probably caused by Windows update KB3013455.

After uninstalling update KB3013455 in the "Installed Updates" Control panel, the issue disappeared.

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    If the answer turned out to be incorrect, please delete it so people aren't confused. Thanks.
    – fixer1234
    Feb 16, 2015 at 10:52
  • @fixer1234 I just corrected the KB number. Removing KB3013455 fixed the issue for me.
    – Michael
    Feb 18, 2015 at 7:26
  • I don't think this is wrong. After a lot more research I've seen people having success doing this. My specific issue was caused by the program Synergy. I'm just stopping and starting that program as needed instead of taking the time to uninstall this Windows update.
    – Jacob Carter
    Feb 18, 2015 at 16:15
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I've had similar symptoms on Windows 10: random windows would at times stop coming to the foreground. The only way to see them was to minimize the other windows. I don't know the cause.

However I've traced the symptom to the "always on top" style attribute for windows. In my case windows randomly acquired this style attribute at which point no window without the style could come in front of them anymore.

As a workaround, I wrote the following AutoHotkey script to reset the style attributes:

; disable AlwaysOnTop for all windows
^1::
  WinGet window,List
  loop % window {
    w := window%a_index%
    WinGet p, ProcessName, % "ahk_id" w
    if (not InStr(p, "explorer", false)) {
      WinSet AlwaysOnTop,Off, % "ahk_id" w
    }
  }
  return

It looks complicated but it's just a for-loop that removes the "always on top" attribute from all windows.

It excludes all windows with 'explorer' in their name as a safeguard against messing with the Windows UI itself. You can adapt that part to your liking.

It's also possible to have this script run automatically regularly.

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