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Prevent Programs From Stealing Focus in Vista

February 13th, 2008 · 5 Comments · Printer Friendly Version

If you’ve ever had an application pop up in front of the window you are working in (for example, when an instant messenger window opens while you are typing in Word), you’ve experienced “focus stealing.” The Microsoft tool TweakUI was capable of changing this behavior in Windows XP, but the tool no longer works in Windows Vista. Instead, you can manually edit the registry:


  1. Open Regedit.exe
  2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
  3. Change the value of “ForegroundLockTimeout” to 0030d40

If you are wary about editing the registry yourself, you can download a premade REG file with the changes in it. Just click here, open the file when prompted, and confirm that you want to merge the file with your computer’s registry.

Related posts:

  1. Keep Your Programs Up-to-date with SUMo
  2. Change the Registered Owner And Organization in Windows XP & Vista
  3. Change the Windows Vista Start Menu Power Button to Shut Down
  4. Disable UAC (user Account Control) in Vista
  5. How to Install Vista on a M200 Without a CD Drive Using TFTP

5 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Reply to this comment Dan Alderman // May 10, 2008 at 8:30 pm

    Hi there. I am so happy to find this tip. I know someone who’s been having a lot of trouble with apps stealing focus when he’s playing World of Warcraft, which could mean life or death in that game…

    *Edited for content by Ryan Adams

  • 2 Reply to this comment Jon // Jul 29, 2008 at 6:20 am


    Nice of you to provide the reg file too! Thanks — I hope it fixes this ridiculous feature of an unspeakably spiteful OS.

    I have been wondering what the 0030d40 represents though? Why 0030d40?

  • 3 Reply to this comment Tim // Aug 17, 2008 at 6:38 pm


    Have you got any other remedies? This one doesn’t work for me. My biggest problem is with Windows Mail on Vista. I use WM as my news reader, and when the progam initiates it’s regular download of new messages and news headers every 5 minutes it resets my reading window to the top of the page and I have to scroll down to continue reading. I would appreciate any help you could offer! Thanks.

  • 4 Reply to this comment Ryan Adams // Aug 17, 2008 at 7:15 pm


    @Tim: That is a problem with Windows Mail and is unrelated to the general “stealing focus” problem in Vista.

    At this time I am not aware of a fix for your problem.

  • 5 Reply to this comment Nikki // Aug 19, 2008 at 6:01 pm


    Thank you for solving a most annoying problem in Vista.

  • 6 Reply to this comment javier // Jan 5, 2009 at 8:28 pm


    Thanks for the tip but it doesn’t work. When I’m typing in MSN, Firefox will still appear in focus. Do you have an idea why?

  • 7 Reply to this comment Ryan Adams // Jan 5, 2009 at 10:09 pm


    @javier: Unfortunately this all relies on a built in function of Windows. It is “iffy” at best. There are still some programs which will always steal focus. In your case, I think you have something deeper going on. The only time Firefox may steal focus would be if the webpage loaded in it requires some input or perhaps if it spawns a pop-up window or dialog box. If it is just sitting there, there should be no reason for it to steal focus.

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