TIP – Stop Applications in Windows Stealing Focus
Posted by: Barry Cleave in Hints & Tips, tags: Backup, Data Security, Free Reviews, Impartial Review, Independent Review, Portable Freeware Applications, TweakUI, Windows, Windows XPApplications in Windows have a nasty habit of stealing focus from the program you are currently using. Generally this is because the default registry settings have been overwritten by a program installation. It is quite easy to change the settings back to the default either by editing the registry or by using a “Tweak” program such as Microsoft’s TweakUI. This problem has recently been driving me mad, I am not a touch typist so tend to spend a lot of time looking at the keyboard while typing. So, every time a program steals focus I loose the work I am typing and sometimes make changes to the program that stole the focus.
UPDATE – Also see this post DeskPins – Help to Stop Other Windows Stealing Focus
To change settings install TweakUI from here:
Click on General > Focus as shown in the screenshot.
Tick the checkbox Prevent applications from stealing focus
Set the Flash taskbar button options to suit
I really wish you could turn this off completely as it is yet another unnecessary distraction particularly when you use Autohide for the Taskbar as I do 
Alternative Registry Edit
Use your favourite registry editor, there are plenty of good Freeware and Portable Freeware options 
or Go to Start > Run and type Regedit in the Run box to open the default Microsoft registry editor
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Control Panel > Desktop as shown by the blue arrows in the above screenshot.
The two registry values are shown in the red box on the screenshot
Double click on the name to open the edit box.
Change ForegroundLockTimeout value to 30d40 (Hexadecimal) or 200000 (Decimal)
Change ForeGroundFlashCount value to 0,1,2 or 2
where 0 is flash button until clicked and 1,2, 3 are exactly that in number of flashes
Other Relevant Posts
DeskPins – Help to Stop Other Windows Stealing Focus
Why You Want to Use Portable Freeware Applications
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Technorati Tags: Backup, Data Security, Free Reviews, Impartial Review, Independent Review, Portable Freeware Applications, Windows, Windows XP, TweakUI
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April 4th, 2008 at 3:07 pm - Edit
[...] Pro Reviewer website has a tip on how to prevent this from happening. The easiest way of preventing focus [...]
April 6th, 2008 at 12:47 am - Edit
[...] to type some words again but also that I lost concentration and have to click to regain focus. The Pro Reviewer website has a tip on how to prevent this from happening. The easiest way of preventing focus [...]
April 20th, 2008 at 8:00 am - Edit
[...] if, like me, you are frequently looking away from the screen while typing. My recent post TIP – Stop Applications in Windows Stealing Focus gives you more information and a way to change settings to help deal with this problem. However, [...]
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:09 pm - Edit
Nice tip. Thanx
May 1st, 2008 at 11:51 am - Edit
[...] [...]
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:49 pm - Edit
[...] TIP – Stop Applications in Windows Stealing Focus [...]
June 15th, 2008 at 9:15 pm - Edit
[...] TIP – Stop Applications in Windows Stealing Focus [...]
June 22nd, 2008 at 10:10 pm - Edit
very useful tip thanks
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 am - Edit
[...] Pro Reviewer website has a tip on how to prevent this from happening. The easiest way of preventing focus [...]
August 19th, 2008 at 11:03 am - Edit
[...] is also a nice article from Pro Reviewer about the problem. One suggestion sometimes made (and made well here) is to use a [...]
August 19th, 2008 at 4:28 pm - Edit
[...] is also a nice article from Pro Reviewer about the problem. One suggestion sometimes made (and made well here) is to use a [...]
September 6th, 2008 at 7:49 am - Edit
well. nice tutorial. is there another alternative freeware for that step?
Deperts last blog post..Video Features Google Chrome
September 30th, 2008 at 11:04 am - Edit
This fix (either using TweakUI or editing the registry directly) seems to work OK with Applications, but not with Windows itself.
Let me explain :
When downloading a large file from a website, Windows will put the file into a temporary directory. Once the download is complete, Windows will “COPY” the file from the temporary area to the folder you chose at the beginning of the download.
The copy process steals focus !!!!
The problem is that the “copy” dialog box has only one button – the “Cancel” button.
If you’re downloading a large file in background and typing in another application in the foreground, then you could hit the “return” key just as the “copy cancel” window pops up.
Net result – instead of hitting the return key in your foreground application, you hit enter on the copy popup – thereby cancelling the large file download.
Now you have to download the large file all over again – what a waste of bandwidth.
Any suggestions of how to stop the Windows copy popup window from stealing focus at the end of file downloads ?
October 1st, 2008 at 6:42 am - Edit
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your detailed comment, great to get this sort of feedback
I will have a look at it in a bit more detail, probably at the weekend.
Regards,
Barry
March 12th, 2009 at 10:01 am - Edit
Advanced xp toolbar is really awesome, i have been using it since few months now.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:08 pm - Edit
[...] PanelDesktop Mentioned, for example, here TIP – Stop Applications in Windows Stealing Focus proreviewer.com/2008/04/04/ti…tealing-focus/ The default value is 0, I think. — [...]
July 11th, 2009 at 5:56 pm - Edit
Thanks for the work around to that on going problem! I am glad that I read this post and can now have more focus on the programs I am currently trying to use rather than background process and such!
December 9th, 2009 at 7:47 am - Edit
Very useful tips to stop focus stealers, especially when working with many applications open, I’m going to try this now. Thanks a lot.
December 12th, 2009 at 4:00 am - Edit
wow nice post, and very useful
December 21st, 2009 at 9:24 am - Edit
Yes, It sometimes become annoying with applications which want to put themselves on top.
January 10th, 2010 at 7:01 pm - Edit
True, the whole process can get pretty complicated and get rather annoying when you don’t know whats going on! these applications can be really frustrating!
January 31st, 2010 at 3:03 pm - Edit
Well I’ve got vista now, and there seems to be a huge problem with windows grabbing the focus – its like XP, but back before this I used this setting. And no tweak XP for vista. So I looked up the reg key that it sets, and it IS ALREADY SET!? does this setting no longer work in vista!?