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A background process/program steals focus from my currently active application. It disturbs me a lot when I type in an app or control an app using keyboard or play online flash games in full-screen.
I want to remove this program from my PC, but I'm unable to detect it. I've analyzed all processes & scanned for viruses. All things are right from this side.
I don't want to change focus behavior using registry tweak. Please, help me detecting that app..

user79032
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    Logically, the application that has stolen the input focus is the application that _has_ the input focus after it has been stolen. So state in your question what window on the screen actually receives the input focus when this happens. That will help other people to tell you what is stealing the input focus. – JdeBP Jun 23 '11 at 16:36
  • Are you sure you don't have problems with your keyboard? I had a similar problem with left windows key and left alt key (they remained pressed from time to time. After I replaced the keyboard it was ok. – Nicu Zecheru Jun 23 '11 at 17:31
  • Bit of a generic advice, but try running HiJackThis and study the results/post them in a forum in order to detect the intruder. – deprecated Jun 23 '11 at 18:41
  • @JdeBP As a background program is responsible, there's no visible application at all. Only one key-stroke is clearly visible: "Alt+F4". It brings back focus to text box (means, that background program is clearly responding Alt+F4). – user79032 Jun 23 '11 at 18:45
  • @Nicu No,No.. the problem isn't with my keyboard because the same key works after Alt+F4 (See previous my comment). Plus, full-screen online games (like CityVille) comes to normal-mode which happens only when focus is removed. – user79032 Jun 23 '11 at 18:51
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    This is a known bug in Windows 7 when 3rd party programs are poorly written, start removing items from startup using msconfig, it will be a process of elimination and will take time. – Moab Jun 23 '11 at 20:40
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    Untrue. Quite a few more keystrokes will be available. `Alt+Space` will bring up the system menu of the focus-stealing application's window, for example. – JdeBP Jun 24 '11 at 10:02
  • @JdeBP Nice approach, but its not working.. not all processes respond to it! – user79032 Jun 27 '11 at 21:47
  • @Moab You're partially correct.. Focus stealing support was removed from Windows 7, nevertheless it happened. Even manipulation of registry is not working... – user79032 Jun 27 '11 at 21:49
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    @ Sachin Sheckhar, Yup, its a bug for sure, many complaints out there for this exact issue, its always a 3rd party software or driver causing it, but its not supposed to happen in W7, but it does. – Moab Jun 27 '11 at 22:47
  • Windows Focus Logger was quick-and-easy to identify the culprit in my case, took about 2 minutes to get the name of the offending app (wemgr): http://www.adminscope.com/downloads/window-focus-logger/ – Stabledog Dec 07 '16 at 14:36

2 Answers2

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I used http://www.happydroid.com/focus and left the PC running over night to find the program that was stealing the focus.

limex
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The problem has been fixed. At a time of focus stealing, I pressed Alt+F4 and instantly spotted exiting process from Process Explorer.

Note: Windows Process Explorer can be downloaded as part of Windows Sysinternals library.

update: theres's any nice pogramm showing/logging, what process has focus: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/ie/en-US/dee98b15-0540-4975-b38d-ce3d2ee87c30/figuring-out-whats-stealing-window-focus

may this helps as well http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windowsxp/ht/stealingfocus02.htm

Hasan Al-Baghdadi
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user79032
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  • I'm curious which program keep stealing focus. . . – surfasb Jul 11 '11 at 19:06
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    Gladinet Cloud Drive. It generally maps online accounts at start-up, but at the time of problem, it failed to log in to Windows Live SkyDrive because of password change. It was re-trying again-n-again with focus stealing! – user79032 Jul 13 '11 at 22:36
  • Interesting . . . – surfasb Jul 14 '11 at 04:19
  • How did you "_spotted exiting process from Process Explorer_"? I'm fighting [the same problem](http://superuser.com/q/709052/156554) and I was more than sure, that when you press `Alt+F4`, program is terminated immediately, so you have no chances to open (or even switch to) Task Manager to see, what has just "left" it. – trejder Jan 30 '14 at 10:05
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    @trejder Use *Process Explorer*, not Task Manager shipped with Windows. *Process Explorer* highlights exiting process with Red. – user79032 Jan 30 '14 at 10:36
  • @SachinShekhar Thanks! Seems, that it does not ships with Windows, but must be [downloaded](http://technet.microsoft.com/pl-pl/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx) as part of _Windows Sysinternals_ library. Let me re-edit your answer, to include this. – trejder Jan 30 '14 at 11:59
  • And, @surfasb, as you can see in the (deleted?) other answer, apparently backup software such as "BullGuard backup" might steal focus too. (Weird, but surely good to know what might cause this.) – Arjan Mar 16 '14 at 11:12
  • You should reword your answer, there are two types of focus stealers, one are the ones who start and stop as process, the others are continuous running process which interfere. Process Explorer doesn't tell anything for programs which continuously run, either in tray or background... while focus.exe does the whole trick. If there's a way for PE to tell what current running application do steal focus, then improve your answer, or spit your answer in two sections... – JasonXA Jun 20 '15 at 21:14
  • I have decompiled focus.exe. You can find the source code http://pastebin.com/Pj4PCLE6 – user1421750 Apr 02 '16 at 22:24