Monday, August 04, 2008

A Puzzler For You

[Answer is above--problem resolved]

Okay, this has been driving me crazy, and I'm guessing that you guys can provide a solution, so thank you in advance for your time.

I'm having a problem in XP, and here are the symptoms:
1. When an item in the status bar is selected, instead of the window for that program maximizing, it will just flash orange instead.
2. If I actually want to switch active windows, I have to do this: click on the Firefox status bar item (for example). It will turn solid orange. Click on it a second time--it will begin to flash orange, and I can see the edges of the window (which were apparently hidden behind the active window) minimize. If I click the item in the status bar a THIRD time, the winow maximizes and this time, I can actually see it.

From what I can tell, if I minimize all the windows prior to clicking on the item in the status bar, they will maximize properly (and be visible) when I click on their status bar item. If I have multiple windows open that aren't minimized, though, all this orange flashing crap starts when I select them.

Why this is driving me crazy: take Outlook, for example. Let's say I'm in my Inbox, and I double-click on an item to read it. When I'm done, I click on "reply." Normally, this pops up a window where I can type in a response, but when the strangeness is going on, that new window is underneath the inbox window, not on top. So I have to click-click-click to get the reply window on front.

I know that this has something to do with windows refusing to take focus, but the solution is beyond me, even though I've Googled quite a bit in the last few hours, trying to find a solution. It kills my productivity, though, because I can't easily switch between active windows, and having the reply window in Outlook underneath instead of on top is a bit of sheer application hell.

Argh.

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