Pause to Taskbar?

[cavity]

After getting rid of most of my crashes, I now have a pause to the taskbar.  While flying, the game instantly boxes to the taskbar and a little blue box with a white center pops up beside it for a split second then disappears.  I have to click on MS box and then unpause it and Im back flying again.  It is totally unpredictable and happens several times during a flight.
The box that flashes for a second looks like the internet  explorer icon box, but after searching my files I found lots of them that have that icon.  How can I isolate the program that is causing the pause?  Todd

[Graycat]

Heya Todd,

It sounds like to me that you have a piece of spyware or adware in your system that at random times wants to pull up an IE webpage.

If you don't have any spyware or adware detection software I would definately recommend Adaware 6
and Spybot S&D.  They're both free and can be downloaded at www.download.com.

Please be reminded that these programs are like your anti-virus program in that they need to be updated at least once (or maybe even twice) a week.  

[cavity]

Graycat, thanks for the response.  Thats what crossed my mind, but I have the latest version of both, and AVG anti virus and all report no problems.  Something is trying to engaged some program, but darned if I can figure what?  Todd

[Wing Nut]

Do a CTRL/ALT/DEL and bring up the task manger.  Try shutting down the processes one at a time, and that may tell you the culprit.

Good luck.

[stevewilson]

By chance do you have your e-mail or icq, msn mesanger turned on to notifie you of incomeing mail or even someone loging off of msn or icq? This is an event that could cause FS to pause.

You could also try going into the settings of FS and unchecking the "pause on task" option, I forget just where it is located.

[commoner]

You could also try going into the settings of FS and unchecking the "pause on task" option, I forget just where it is located.

...Settings then the General tab............

[Wing Nut]

But that won't solve the problem.

[JBaymore]

Cavity,

This is the totally dumb thought of the day..... but first of all in debugging this ... do you have "Pause on Task Switch" unchecked in the FS2004 settings?

IS your computer on a LAN network?

best,

..................john

[cavity]

Thanks for all the suggestions.  I cant recall ever seeing the "pause on task" box so that is the first thing I will try.  Isnt that for accessing a program while you a flying and it automatically pauses the game?  My pause is totally out of my control, but lets start there and Ill report back.  I dont use MSN and while I use Email, I dont have any message alerters or things like that.  Todd

[cavity]

Ok, had the box checked, unchecked it, flew for three minutes and had the first pause to taskbar.  Thats one ruled out, any suggestions for whats next?  Todd

[cavity]

I tried control/alt/delete.  I have 32 running processes, is that alot?  Most are under the heading SYSTEM, a few are under LOCAL,  and a few under my name, I guess because Im the adminstrator.  How do I go about choosing which one or ones I can safely shut down?  Todd