This happens in OL 2010 and 2007...

 

I have Outlook 2007 running on Win 7 Pro x64, connected to a remote (hosted) Exchange Server.

From time to time, when I'm composing email, Outlook seems to lose focus on the active window. This is frustrating as you end up typing away but the text doesn't actually appear in the mail.

If you wait a few (10-30) seconds focus usually returns, but you have to re-type everything you missed. Alternatively you can force focus to return (if you notice the behaviour) by clicking back in the window.

A couple of colleagues have noticed the same behaviour - all with Win 7 x64 and Outlook 2007 or 2010 - so I was wondering if it's a known issue, and if any work-arounds are known?

I have already tried disabling Windows Search, both within Outlook and by shutting down the Service, but that seems to make no difference. Neither did disabling my AV solution (MSFT Security Essentials...), disabling the track-pad (to prevent accidental contact), removing images from email signatures or changing the send/receive interval.

Thanks

TIM

• Moved by Jennifer ZhanModerator Friday, November 05, 2010 8:40 AM (From:Office 2010 Application Compatibility)

Hi Tim,

Try to prevent programs from stealing focus in Windows, follow steps below:

1. Click on Start and then Run.

2. In the text box in the Run window, type regedit and click OK. This will open the Registry Editor program.

3. Locate the HKEY_CURRENT_USER folder under My Computer and click on the (+) sign next the folder name to expand the folder.

4. Continue to expand folders until you reach the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel registry key.

5. Select the Desktop key under Control Panel.

6. On the right-hand side of the screen, locate and double-click on the ForegroundLockTimeout DWORD.

7. In the Edit DWORD Value window that appears, set the Value data: field to 30d40.

   Note: Make sure the Base option is set to Hexadecimal when entering the DWORD value.

8. Click OK and then close Registry Editor.

9. Reboot your PC for the changes you made to take effect.

10. From this point forward, programs should no longer steal the focus from the window that you're currently working in.

Also you can try to start Outlook in safe mode [hold ctrl key while startup] to see if this issue is caused by add-ins. If so, you can disable add-ins.

Hope that helps.

• Marked as answer by Jennifer ZhanModerator Thursday, November 11, 2010 8:11 AM

Unfortunately this doesn't work - value was already set correctly but the behaviour persists.

I have only one add-in configured and disabling it makes no difference.

Any more suggestions?

TIM

I have this problem and have narrowed it down to Trend Micro's Internet Security anti-spam feature.  The TMAS_OL.exe runs every 4-5s and steals the focus for appx 5s - most annoying.  I have sent a support request to trend micro.  Do you have TMIS or something similar - open task manager and choose order by CPU (highest at top) and see what program/process runs when you lose focus.  This is how i found the problem on my PC.

 

Hope this helps.

I had the same thing happen to me and opened task manager.  Everytime Outlook lost its focus, the process dwm.exe (Desktop windows manager) popped to the top of task manager when sorted by CPU.  as soon as CPU went back to 0, focus came back to outlook.  Any idea what DPW.EXE is and why it activates at random times?

ForegroundLockTimeout had no effect on the behavoir.  My offending process was HP Support Assistant Service. I found my offender by monitoring Task Manager AND by ALT+Tab. When I terminated HPSA via Task Mgr, the behavoir, Cursor Stealing, ended. HPSA automatically restarted, but the Curson Stealing did not return.  My suspicion is that we all have experienced a corrupted process that somewhere has a response that it is checking but never displays the question dialog.  I had this Cursor Stealing over an 8 day period. I reported the problem to my email provider ... and then experienced the same behavoir in Word, Excel, PDFs, etc.  I did not have to reboot.

I am experiencing the same issue.

Not only with Outlook but will all programs.

W7 32 bits.  Recently rebuilt computer.  

Not sure if related but I am having other issues, like IE crashing once i type one character on the URL bar, Outlook crashing once I search for a contact.

My experience seems to indicate that Outlook ITSELF is causing the intermittent focus loss problem.

I'm running Win 7 x64 and Outlook 2010, connected to our local Exchange Server.  Every 30 seconds, I lose focus in whatever I'm doing.  It lasts between 2 and 3 seconds each time.  It also seems that it happens at 15 seconds and 45 seconds past the minute mark on the clock.  

I experimented with different programs and watched the system clock closely, and realized that if I closed Outlook, the behavior stopped.  

I'm still trying to see if there's a setting somewhere that will prevent this behavior.  If I find something, I'll post here again.

--Chuck Simmons

I've this problem too (Win 7 x64 and Outlook 2010, connected to our local Exchange Server), very annoying. I lose focus in whatever I'm doing. If I close Outlook, everything is OK...

Same thing been happening to me during the past several days.  Very unnerving, on my work pc.

Can't even type an email without it happening, because I've timed the effect and it happens exactly every 30 seconds.  Have to retype what was lost.

I THINK I fixed it by doing a "Repair" under control panel/programs/office/uninstall or repair procedure.

Time will tell , but so far so good and I didn't want to forget to post for somebody suffering the same thing to try this.

By the way, I did other commonly recommended things like eliminate all other add-ins that are not Microsoft add-ins, etc., change that Registry Desktop focus DWORD value, etc.  Nothing fixed it until the Office "Repair" procedure.

MY system:

WIndows 7 64bit

Office 2010 64bit

i7 CPU

SSD drive

12GB RAM

• Proposed as answer by JRomulus Friday, July 25, 2014 1:59 PM

Finally traced this to a hardware driver issue for any who might chance upon this post.

Long story short:  Change the Logitech Setpoint drivers for my bluetooth keyboard to the latest 64 bit driver and all is well, issue gone. All addins added back in, no issues with Outlook.

Strange that only Outlook evidenced symptoms of this problem.

• Proposed as answer by RustyRoot 16 hours 39 minutes ago

I had the same issue and tried the same proposed solutions.  Funny thing is that it just started happening after a Microsoft update but updating the BIOS and drivers fixed it for me as well.

I had this happening to me, along with some other odd things. in Outlook (running office 365) the outline of the window that contains Outlook will start to flicker like mad with not responding. Finally it stops and I can continue. Sometimes new emails I want to compose fall behind the main outlook window (while I'm typing in it), sometimes not. other odd things in a totally different application, my dropdown windows don't work. the first time I click it, it just jumps back as if I hadn't touched it. The second time I try, it works. And other random windows just start flickering with not responding. Sometimes explorer.exe quits working and all the icons on my taskbar don't always show. Sometimes upon a reboot, the gadgets don't show up on the monitor. Reading many posts about these separately, but not together, I've tried many things. What finally worked was turning off all the visual effects.

control panel > Performance Information and Tools > Adjust visual effects

Turned off everything except:

• show shadows under windows
• show translucent selection rectangle
• smooth edges of screen fonts
• use visual styles on windows and buttons

Also had to re-do the clear-type. I'm running Windows 7.