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The symptoms are, that some (not all) desktop app windows will stay in the background, behind other windows, even though I have click on them, which would normally make that window receive focus and come to the foreground, above any other overlapping windows. I haven't found much rhyme or reason either. The two apps that exhibit this behavior the most, are Chrome and Visual Studio (the two apps I use more than any others, unfortunately). The other odd thing about it, is that sometimes, this isn't the case (like right now), and all windows behave as expected.

Factors:

  • Windows 8.1
  • Dell Precision Laptop (2 years old)
  • 3 displays total, counting the laptop LCD
  • Internal LCD and a Samsung LCD monitor connected to VGA port are controlled by an Intel HD Graphics 4000 card
  • A Gateway monitor is connected to the HDMI port and controlled by an Nvidia Quadro K4000m Adaptor

I found one other question dealing with the same thing, but has received no answers, so I thought I'd ask to see if someone has a solution. This other question has an animated gif showing the behavior. The other question is here

Any ideas out there? This is majorly frustrating. When this happens, I have to drag the window I want to see to another monitor, and sometimes, minimize other windows on that monitor.

* EDIT - NEW INFO * After some deliberate investigation and research, I have determined that, at least for now, the problem seems to be specifically Visual Studio 2013. Apparently, when I go into debug mode (currently using the Azure Emulator, which may or may not have anything to do with it), I was able to replicate the behavior (only for the visual studio window, which may have been the problem all along, but I could have sworn that Chrome exhibited the same behavior). In this case, visual studio is in a "Stay on top" mode. So far, the only way I have found to clear it, is to exit VS and restart, which isn't a good solution. I haven't found a switch in VS to control that behavior, but it might be in there somewhere. If I find something, I will post the solution here.

Community
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Richard B
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1 Answers1

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It's possible that some application was set to "Stay on top" which causes it to remain in the foreground even after you've switched focus to another window (e.g. Playing a video in VLC Media Player with Video → Always on Top checked)

If you'd like certain windows to always remain on top, you could use this tiny utility from Labnol.org built using AutoHotkey. Run the program and press Ctrl+Space whenever you want the currently focused window to always remain on top.

Press Ctrl+Space again to deactivate.

If you'd like to compile the AutoHotkey script yourself, this one line of code is the source (uses WinSet):

^SPACE::  WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, , A
Vinayak
  • 10,885