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> It has always felt insane to me that macOS and Windows will both just let some random auto-updater steal focus and eat your keystrokes while trying to work on

> It has always felt insane to me that macOS and Windows will both just let some random auto-updater steal focus and eat your keystrokes while trying to work on something. Wait, what? Hasn't Windows prevented focus stealing for literally decades at this point? https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20090220-00/?p=19083 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20090220-00/?p=19...

dmart 1y ago
Ah, that may be the case - I’ll edit my comment. I was primarily using macOS before this so I may have misremembered the Windows behavior.
jenscow 1y ago
An app can still steal focus with `uiAccess=true` in the app manifest's execution level (and the app is signed).
ack_complete 1y ago
It used to block focus stealing aggressively unless a program had foreground permission or was given it (AllowSetForegroundWindow), but the mechanism seems broken in current versions of Windows.
- dataflow 1y ago
  Do you have a link to more details or something? I haven't seen or heard of what you describe.
  - ack_complete 1y ago
    Afraid not. The documentation for AllowSetForegroundWindow() and the associated mechanism still exists, of course: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winuser/nf-winuser-allowsetforegroundwindow https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winuser/... But the last time I tried to test code using this to properly hand off foreground permission from one process to another, I had a hard time testing it because I couldn't get it to fail. When this mechanism was first introduced in Windows 98 and 2000, it was pretty aggressive -- if you were past the input timeout and foreground permission hadn't been forwarded or already shared, the target application would fail to come to the front and its taskbar button would light up instead. I haven't seen this happen in a long time on current Windows, programs steal focus all the time.
    - iforgotpassword 1y ago
      Haven't used windows in a decade, but there is (was?) a registry setting that would disable focus stealing prevention. Some egregious tools "helpfully" changed that setting for you when you installed them, because they couldn't get focus management to work properly. Maybe it's that?
      - ack_complete 1y ago
        Interference from some program is a possibility, but the relevant foreground lock registry keys seem default on all my systems.
    - dataflow 1y ago
      I'm pretty sure something weird is going on in your case because I recently had to fight a case of this that had seemingly gotten more aggressive in Windows 11, not less. The focus stealing prevention has always been there and is still there as far as I've observed.

dmart 1y ago

Ah, that may be the case - I’ll edit my comment. I was primarily using macOS before this so I may have misremembered the Windows behavior.

jenscow 1y ago

An app can still steal focus with `uiAccess=true` in the app manifest's execution level (and the app is signed).

ack_complete 1y ago

It used to block focus stealing aggressively unless a program had foreground permission or was given it (AllowSetForegroundWindow), but the mechanism seems broken in current versions of Windows.

dataflow 1y ago
Do you have a link to more details or something? I haven't seen or heard of what you describe.
- ack_complete 1y ago
  Afraid not. The documentation for AllowSetForegroundWindow() and the associated mechanism still exists, of course: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winuser/nf-winuser-allowsetforegroundwindow https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winuser/... But the last time I tried to test code using this to properly hand off foreground permission from one process to another, I had a hard time testing it because I couldn't get it to fail. When this mechanism was first introduced in Windows 98 and 2000, it was pretty aggressive -- if you were past the input timeout and foreground permission hadn't been forwarded or already shared, the target application would fail to come to the front and its taskbar button would light up instead. I haven't seen this happen in a long time on current Windows, programs steal focus all the time.
  - iforgotpassword 1y ago
    Haven't used windows in a decade, but there is (was?) a registry setting that would disable focus stealing prevention. Some egregious tools "helpfully" changed that setting for you when you installed them, because they couldn't get focus management to work properly. Maybe it's that?
    - ack_complete 1y ago
      Interference from some program is a possibility, but the relevant foreground lock registry keys seem default on all my systems.
  - dataflow 1y ago
    I'm pretty sure something weird is going on in your case because I recently had to fight a case of this that had seemingly gotten more aggressive in Windows 11, not less. The focus stealing prevention has always been there and is still there as far as I've observed.