Games randomly minimizing

[homerdog]

This is bizarre... every once in a while I'll be playing Dragon Age 2 and the game minimizes, leaving me staring at the desktop. It happens in other games too.

I have lots of things running in the background but it isn't clear at all what is causing this. Any tips on how I could figure this out?

 

[Davros]

are you hitting a windows key by accident ?
alt and ctrl are near the win key
my keyboard has (as well as the standard windows key) keys for cut, copy, paste, show desktop, maximize, minimize, restore, my computer, play, stop, ff, rw, pause, mute, vol up, vol down, open browser
ect.

 

[homerdog]

Nope. In fact I just paused the game to go pee, and when I got back it was minimized. So that's definitely not it.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

There's something stealing focus. Virus scanner? Malware? Popup message?

 

[Bludd]

Is your browser hardware accelerated and do you have a self-refreshing web-page opened?

 

[ERP]

Most common cause is windows update or some other task in the tray trying to present you a message. I'd love to know if there is a work around for this, it's insane to minimize a full screen app because of a tray message.

 

[Davros]

my firewall does that though, but i dont mind because if my firewall pops up a warning its because something new is trying to access the net.
like when a C:\Users\Davros\AppData\Local\Temp\random letters and numbers.exe tried to access the net
caused when my browser opened a webpage with an embedded malwared pdf file. I learned my lesson from that. Never allow pdf files to open in a browser and better still ditch acrobat.

 

[homerdog]

There are no popups or tray messages... my browser is running in the background but no self-refreshing pages. It is annoying but ultimately tolerable in Dragon Age 2, but if it happened near the end of a race in Grid 2 I would be really pissed.

Are there any utilities I could run to get a better understanding of what's causing this?

 

[Bludd]

There are no popups or tray messages... my browser is running in the background but no self-refreshing pages. It is annoying but ultimately tolerable in Dragon Age 2, but if it happened near the end of a race in Grid 2 I would be really pissed.

Are there any utilities I could run to get a better understanding of what's causing this?

What about loaded pages in the browser with embedded content like flash or silverlight?

 

[Davros]

try without the browser running
if you had 2 monitors you could run the game on the second lcd so you could see the desktop
disable non essential process's and enable one by one
maybe something like process explorer can log events ?

 

[Jedi2016]

For me it was iTunes. It would force itself into the foreground to prompt for updates, which meant minimizing any full-screen applications. As a result, iTunes doesn't live here anymore.

 

[homerdog]

It still happens even with all browsers closed.

Background apps that I can see in the system tray are:
APC PowerChute Personal Edition
Teamviewer host V8
Steam
Origin (this is the only app not minimized since I launch DA2 from it)
Citrix Receiver
Microsoft Security Essentials
Via HD Audio Deck (audio driver)
Intel Rapid Storage Technology

The only Apple stuff I see under Processes is
AppleMobileDeviceService.exe *32 and mDNSResponder.exe

There are so many processes running, I don't even know where to start

 

[Grall]

Start by quitting everything you can. No way to diagnose anything if you don't...

 

[Davros]

try ms config
does this happen if you are disconected from the net ?
found this from someone else who had the same problem

I found what is wrong, I just opened Task Manager and found that the file named: "wermgr.exe" (Windows Problem Reporting) It just opens and closes over and over again. So, I pressed the start button and searched for "Choose how to report problems" and then I clicked it and then I clicked "Never check for solutions", Which fixed everything

ps: anything in event log
clear it run a game and as soon as it minimizes check the event viewer
pps: do you use avira av ?

sometimes I get a "your video drivers have stopped responding and have recoverd message but that only happens with flas not with games.

pps: razer game booster has a setting that will shut down all unnecessary process while you game you can then re enable them
http://www.razerzone.com/gamebooster

ppps: do you have wallpaper set to automatically change ?

 

[Grall]

I have automatically changing wallpapers and nothing auto-minimizes. I don't think this would matter at all, TBH.

 

[Bludd]

Ah, you have Teamviewer. Try this:

Teamviewer - Extras - Options - Advanced - Show advanced options - Configure Quick Connect - remove check mark for quick connect

 

[Blazkowicz]

There was an option in TweakUI to prevent focus stealing, but that works up to XP/2003.
From googling the option (which was a reg setting) was removed, and people say microsoft security essentials uses unavoidable focus stealing as a feature.

So I assume MS pondered the likelyhood of some people staying behind in security updates and alerts and decided to disallow the option that means focus stealing never happens ever, whatever programs you are running.

 

[homerdog]

Ah, you have Teamviewer. Try this:

Teamviewer - Extras - Options - Advanced - Show advanced options - Configure Quick Connect - remove check mark for quick connect

I already did that

I killed Teamviewer and it still happens. Blehg

 

[Bludd]

Can you capture a hijackthis log and upload it somewhere we can look at it? pastebin for instance?

Also have you tried disabling Citrix Receiver?

 

[homerdog]

I will try hijackthis this evening. Haven't tried disabling Citrix Receiver yet.