My games minimize by themselves sometimes. Why?

Z

zamardii

2[H]4U
Joined
Nov 22, 2004
Messages
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There's hardly anything running in the background, but sometimes my games would just minimize and I would see the desktop. I don't get it. Nothing pops up when it minimizes, and it happens very randomly, and sometimes I even have to restart my computer b/c of it b/c I can't get back in.

Thanks,
 
do you have any of those widget things? like RocketDock or ObjectDock? it used to happen to me with ObjectDock a lot
 
old version of winamp use to alt tab you out of games. was along time ago but similar programs running in background can do this.
 
i know it happens to me when a full screen app wants to start in anything less then 1024x768 as im running a widescreen monitor
 
I call spyware also.

A temporary solution to prevent other programs from stealing focus is...

Start > Run > regedit.exe

Navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Edit ForegroundLockTimeout to 0030d40

Though you really should check up on your computer.
 
MindBuster said:
I call spyware also.

A temporary solution to prevent other programs from stealing focus is...

Start > Run > regedit.exe

Navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Edit ForegroundLockTimeout to 0030d40

Though you really should check up on your computer.
Click to expand...

What does that do?
 
LordBritish said:
Reformat, Reinstall windows, reinstall game.
Click to expand...

LOL, you're just telling the guy that to fuck with him right?

Jumping the gun a bit? Why don't we help troubleshoot his system a touch first?

OP:

How recent was your last spyware scan? Virus scan? What tools did you use to do it? How many processes do you have running? Have you googled any ones which you don't recognize? Pr0n much? Juarez?

Any excessively annoying security/monitoring software?
 
Vanskater said:
i know it happens to me when a full screen app wants to start in anything less then 1024x768 as im running a widescreen monitor
Click to expand...

I agree with this. Madden 2007 for example is a royal bitch about this. Cutscenes, menus etc that do not in my LCD's native resolution cause this drop out all the time.

Widescreen native games such as Oblivion, Command and Conquer 3, Tomb Raider Legend (once you get to the menu), do not have dropout to desktop.

One difference from my issues is that I can always click restore on that minimized application and get back to the game (although it is very annoying).
 
i was running folding@home for a while and when ever I had the little red icon running in the corner my games would minimize themselves. it really pissed off every one who didn't know the secret and tried to play a game on my PC.
 
I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, but do you have a firewall such as ZoneAlarm? With the ZoneAlarm Internet Security suite, several of my games would minimize every now and then if I didn't put the ZoneAlarm into Game Mode. When Game Mode was enabled (with the "Answer all alerts with Deny" option set), I never had a game minimize on me. But you have to remember to turn Game Mode off when you're done with the game.
 
I had an ASUS app that would do this.(don't remember which one) It was set to start on boot, I killed it in msconfig-startup, and no more problems..
 
The windows key used to get me pretty bad untill I ripped that sucker off of the keyboard (5$ KB so no worries). Once I got my new keyboard i never had the problem since- must be a more friendly layout. Beware if you started getting the problem since you switched KB's.
 
bobbydole said:
i was running folding@home for a while and when ever I had the little red icon running in the corner my games would minimize themselves. it really pissed off every one who didn't know the secret and tried to play a game on my PC.
Click to expand...

Only the graphical F@H client causes that.. Console version does not..
 
Sorry to revive this thread, but this is happening to me as well, but only in one game: Madden 08. I'm pretty sure it does it because the native resolution for the menu is set and cannot be changed. When you change the game's resolution, it only impacts the resolution in a game.

Anyone know how to fix? I can't find a registry entry for it to force it to start in a certain resolution. :confused:
 
Make sure that "Keep the taskbar on top of other windows" is unchecked. Any sidebars running. And of course everything that has already been mentioned, (spyware, virus, etc...)
 
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