Why does my active window becomes inactive suddenly?

hello, i am using windows xp,intel core 2 duo processor, 1 gb ram, 256mb nvidia graphics card,160 gb hdd When i am operating in a window , it becomes inactive suddenly. This happens every 30 seconds or something like that, and i have to click in the window again to work in it. i have scanned my pc with symantec antivirus. there are no viruses or anything . this problem has started since past 5 days. i will be very grateful to receive help on this thank you.

This generally means something else is running in the background and is taking "focus" from your current application. This could be your firewall, one of your security applications, something else in Windows, or malware.

Next time it happens, without touching the mouse, open Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt Del) and click the Applications tab. The "active window" should be highlighted.

I would start by making sure your system is clean of malware. I recommend you run a complete anti-malware scan of your system. If you do not have a full arsenal, I suggest you check out my canned text, Cleaning Out Malware for cleaning out your system, and for building your own security suite.

Once you are sure your system is clean:

To prevent any application from stealing focus over an application you're currently working on.

Try this registry tweak:

Copy and paste the following bold red text in Notepad..

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"ForegroundFlashCount"=dword:00000000
"ForegroundLockTimeout"=dword:00030d40

Click Save As from the File menu
Select All Files from the Save As Type menu in the Save As dialog box
Save this file with a ".reg" extension, as in mynewfile.reg
Locate and right-click your newly-created file and then select Merge
When prompted, choose Yes
Reboot Windows for the change to take effect

This tells Windows to prevent any application window from popping up in front of your current one and instead only flash ths icon in the taskbar.

You could also just use regedit to make the above changes, or install Microsoft's TweakUI, see here:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windowsxp/ht…lingfocus01.htm

All this may not help but it's worth a try.

to Ztruker Thanks a lot - that above reg. trick worked for me - in my case it was not only the browser - but any active window… very annoying - I took a step by step, quit all applications, at last I had only the most 5 important running, and still happened - have no idea what program it could be as this computer is completely newly installed with all windows upgrades, I did by accident download cnets downloader - which I CANNOT advise to do - it installs all kind of carp** !! on your computer - the same goes for ZoneAlarm - crappy programs as it stuffs your computer if not with malware - then something just above it… thanks anyway… very helpful, and actually the reason I joined this board ! -Halaster Quad i7, 8GB, ATI HD 5450, 24" HDMI, 3TB