Any way to...

[beefhole]

...set it so that when a new window opens, it doesn't automatically become the active window?

I'm having a problem with something that opens for about half a second before immediately closing (probably being closed by Norton or something), like once every five minutes.  I assumed it was spyware/adware, so I ran spybot and adaware.  That didn't fix it, so until I can find the source I need to get creative.

The thing about it is that when I'm playing a game or something, the game will minimize when the thing comes up.  Not working for SWAT4.

Are there any settings to make it so that when a new window opens, it doesn't automatically become the active window?  Thanks guys.

[congo]

It's much better to find the culprit and remove the offending software....... It will be using resources while running in the background and possibly represents a security risk, and, if it's connecting to the internet, it's also possibly using up part of your net bandwidth if that concerns you.

Check your startup and remove the culprit if possible from there.

Here's a great little program to halt all those offending programs running in the background once and for all!

http://www.wheresjames.com/index.php?page=startupmgr

Other more persistent nasties will need to be pulled from services and/or possibly a manual registry removal.

Don't be at all surprised to find all kinds of things running in the startup.

I run one single item in startup, my firewall. Everything else is ....... thanks to James...... outta there!

[beefhole]

Ahh, I have regcleaner and ALWAYS forget about it .  Thanks, I'll try that out.

[beefhole]

Going over the startup list and running regcleaner seemed to do it.

Thanks for kicking me in the a$$ and reminding me

[congo]

It was most likely something in the startup, as regcleaner doesn't remove installed software, it just cleans up bad entries as far as I know.

Another thing you could do is check control panel/add remove software and see if there are any superfluous entries that can be gotten rid of, it might be a more permanent solution. In any case, try to determine the culprit's identity and remove it entirely if it's not required.