Re: Something Stealing App Focus Hourly

I recommend an article at Aumha.org on ways to cleanup parasites.
Follow the quick-fix protocol.
http://aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm

Here are 2 tools from SysInternals that may help you get an insight on
what's running.
Autoruns (checks & shows what's set to auto-load at Windows startup)
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/autoruns.shtml

Process Explorer http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml

You likely will have to do cleanups in Safe mode, once you have downloaded
current definitions.
You should even use Safe Mode with Networking to do all this work.
Press F8 Function key as the pc is booting up so that you can see bootup
choices.

--
Maurice N
MVP Windows - Shell / User
---

> Every hour something steals focus twice from whatever app I'm working
> in. I think it's related to IE or something is using IE.
>
> I have a clicking sound tied to the Explorer "Start Navigation" program
> event. Every hour I will hear 4 of those clicks regardless of what I'm
> working in or have open.
>
> Focus does not seem to shift TO anything, it just shifts AWAY from
> whatever I'm on. If I am quick enough and grab focus back during the
> first 2 clicks it will steal focus again during the last 2 clicks. If
> I wait until all the clicks have completed and then grab focus back, I
> will be fine. Every hour this sequence repeats.
>
> Another pertinent fact is that the focus-stealer does not run at the
> same time every time. It runs exactly 1 hour after my last reboot and
> every hour from that point on. If I reboot again then once again it
> runs exactly 1 hour later and every hour from that point on. This
> leads me to believe it's some background process with an internal timer
> rather than a scheduled task.
>
> This started several months ago. I am running (and have been running)
> current McAfee, Spybot S&D, and Ad-Aware. I have no scheduled tasks in
> my Scheduled Tasks window. I have looked up every single process
> running in my background and according to liutilities.com they are all
> valid processes for the apps I have installed. I've reviewed every
> single service that is running and they all SEEM to be ok but I don't
> know that I would really be able to spot a rogue. I keep my task bar
> clean and I regularly clean up uneccessary background process trash
> that new apps try to install.
>
> I'm thinking that a process is running invisibly or something has
> commandeered a valid Windows process.
>
> Please help! At this point I suspect some sort of spyware that is
> "phoning home". Any and all advice is welcome.
>


.

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