Outlook 2003 Drops Out Of New/Reply View

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This is happening on several different desktop PCs, with different PSTs, different mail accounts, all POP clients: While typing a reply or a new message, the active window suddenly drops behind the main Outlook window. Two PCs have an USB keyboard, all have optical mice, no trackpads, all Dell PCs that are anywhere from 2 to 4 years old, all with Windows XP SP3. Outlook is fully patched, SP3 level, very conventional setup.
Problem cannot be intentionally replicated; only seems to happen randomly. Two PCs in same office, third PC is at a different office 20 miles away.
Other than PC brand and Outlook 2003, cannot determine any other commonality. ANY ideas welcome — this is extremely annoying!

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Something is causing the main Outlook application to steal focus. Are you running any Outlook addins? Look particularly for anything that might synchronize on a regular schedule. To check addins go to Tools | Options | Other | Advanced Options (button). Then either the “Add-In Manager” or “Com Add-ins” buttons.

Joe

--Joe

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Yes, it is the main window stealing focus. And today, it happened while in Firefox, with Outlook as a secondary (non-minimized) app. Could it be Send/Receive? Outlook is set to auto send/receive every 5 minutes. FYI: no COM addins in any of the three PCs.

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This is happening on several different desktop PCs, with different PSTs, different mail accounts, all POP clients: While typing a reply or a new message, the active window suddenly drops behind the main Outlook window. Two PCs have an USB keyboard, all have optical mice, no trackpads, all Dell PCs that are anywhere from 2 to 4 years old, all with Windows XP SP3. Outlook is fully patched, SP3 level, very conventional setup.
Problem cannot be intentionally replicated; only seems to happen randomly. Two PCs in same office, third PC is at a different office 20 miles away.
Other than PC brand and Outlook 2003, cannot determine any other commonality. ANY ideas welcome — this is extremely annoying!

I have WinXP SP3 on a Dell P4 2.8 GHz 1 GB RAM with Logitech wireless mouse/key to USB and finding something is automatically switching focus between apps. I’ve turned off a couple of addins to Firefox like RealPlayer LiveConnect and Yahoo ActiveX plugin. No change. Shaw cable security is F-Prot and doing active protect. Also ran MS Security Essentials and removed several bad files. Running a program called What’s Running v.2.2 and don’t see anything odd. Just disabled ArcSoft connect process but still switches. Also something called RealSched which looks like something from RealPlayer, still switches. Also recently installed MS LifeCam Cinema and their software doesn’t support it on this hardware – get “no camera detected” but Skye works ok as does MS Messenger but neither know about 720p resolution.

If anyone has any suggestions, I’d appreciate hearing from you.

Cheers, Ray Edmonton AB

2010-01-27 followup

The problem turned out to be the MK300 wireless mouse/keyboard combo; installed wired mouse/keyboard and no problem. Add/remove programs to delete the drivers, reboot, reinstall and no further trouble. Who would have thunk?

RMW

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I just confirmed the problem today: it is Outlook itself! I turned off automatic (periodic) Send/Receive several days ago and the problem has not occurred since. I guess my next question is “Is anyone else out there seeing this symptom as well?” If so, how have you dealt with it?

For now, I am just hitting “Send/Receive” every now and then….

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I just confirmed the problem today: it is Outlook itself! I turned off automatic (periodic) Send/Receive several days ago and the problem has not occurred since. I guess my next question is “Is anyone else out there seeing this symptom as well?” If so, how have you dealt with it?

For now, I am just hitting “Send/Receive” every now and then….

I’ve used Outlook for a very long time, have it running all day at work, and have never had this problem.

Do you have the TweakUI powertoy from Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP installed. See the General | Focus setting to stop applications from stealing focus.

Joe

--Joe

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I will re-enable Automatic Send/Receive and try what you are suggesting, then will get back to all in a few days.

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After using TweakUI to instruct Outlook to stop stealing focus, and turning Automatic Send/Receive back on, my problem has returned. So, there still seems to be some issue within Outlook that causes the focus to switch back to the main window while working in another message window.

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After using TweakUI to instruct Outlook to stop stealing focus, and turning Automatic Send/Receive back on, my problem has returned. So, there still seems to be some issue within Outlook that causes the focus to switch back to the main window while working in another message window.

It was worth a try. My guess at this point is there is an Outlook addin that is doing this. Check your Outlook addins. Consider running with Outlook addins disabled for a while to see if that is the issue.

Joe

--Joe

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