UltraEdit, UltraCompare, UEStudio forums

A possible new solution for the problem that UltraEdit is not rising to top.

I have installed a program named "PC-Bibliothek" which is a German dictionary program. It worked fine until I add the 5th dictionary today. Suddenly it does not rise to foreground anymore at program start on my Windows XP computer, but there was no problem at Windows 98. So I played a little with it and created a second shortcut to the program and activated the "Windows 98 / Windows Me" compatibility mode. After activation it now works fine again, independet which shortcut I use. Turning the compatibility mode off and the rising to foreground problem is back. Mysterious - it seems to be a timing problem of the handles.

Windows stores the compatibility setting in the registry, for example for my "PC-Bibliothek" it is:

[HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-670792205-101265881-2389969595-1006\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers]
"D:\\Duden\\pcbib_bi.exe"="WIN98"

So take a look at this registry key, if you have also set a compatibility flag for uedit32.exe or set it and test it with compatibility mode.

I wrote, that I have activated the "Windows 98 / Windows Me" compatibility mode for "PC-Bibliothek" and this has solved the problem. It hasn't solved it really. After adding additional dictionaries, the program fails again to get to foreground and only flashes in the taskbar.

Today I again searched for the reason on internet and found a forum post, where a user have the same problem with IE and Outlook and an other user gives a good advice.

I have installed TweakUI for XP a long time ago and the feature Prevent applications from stealing focus at the General - Focus section of TweakUI was active til now. I can't remember, if I have activated it or if it was already active by default.

Turning this feature off, seems to really solve the problem with the flashing program icon of "PC-Bibliothek". I think, the original problem is that "PC-Bibliothek" starts, then opens another thread to check CD serial key, which is a little bit slowly, and then the main window wants to "steal" the focus back to main window. But that is only a supposition.

Opening files with UltraEdit from the content menu acts in a similar way. First ue32ctmn.dll is run, then uedit32.exe is started. So it could be the same problem. Although I did not have this problem with UltraEdit, maybe because I never use Windows Explorer. (Total Commander lets me open any file with the editor by just pressing F4, when the file has focus.)

What does TweakUI change in the registry for this feature?

Prevent applications from stealing focus ON is stored in the registry as:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"ForegroundLockTimeout"=dword:00030d40

Prevent applications from stealing focus OFF is stored in the registry as:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"ForegroundLockTimeout"=dword:00000000

So try to set the ForegroundLockTimeout to 0.

I know, I have already written about this special registry setting, see SetForegroundWindow function.

I know also, that this page describes the value 00030d40 as the default value. But I today looked for this key on 2 colleagues computer2 where TweakUI was never installed and the value is also 0 on both computers.