Help me control my Windows

January 23, 2009 9:55 AM

How do I adjust how Windows XP gives individual windows/applications priority?

For example, when Internet Explorer is slow in loading a site, I might switch to Word or something else and begin to type. Then Internet Explorer rears it's head when it's loaded the site.... in the middle of my typing, taking priority over Word (or whatever application I want to stay on top). Windows has gotten so complex, I'm not sure how to tweak such basic stuff anymore.

posted by punkfloyd to technology (4 comments total)

Tweak UI allows you to change the setting for "prevent applications from stealing focus". Note that some apps (I'm looking at you, iTunes), ignore this setting, and will steal focus whenever they feel like it.
posted by nomisxid at 10:02 AM on January 23 [1 favorite has favorites]

From the task manager, right-click on a process and choose a priority from the list. It's probably safer to lower the priority of certain processes than to raise the priority of others. Setting a process to "real time" is not a good idea.
posted by sanko at 10:02 AM on January 23

tweak ui
posted by nomisxid at 10:03 AM on January 23 [1 favorite has favorites]

Sanko: I don't think he wants to mess with Scheduling priority. I believe what he wants is to adjust Focus priority.

PunkFloyd: You can try using TweakUI, but really, in the end, there isn't much you can do. Applications are written by people who think there app is always the most important app so they don't always follow the guidelines. Internet Explorer is no exception. If you think Windows is complex as a user, trust me when I say its even more complex for developers writing to the win32 API. Its actually hard to write apps that always do the right thing.

Don't mess with Process scheduling (by using Task Manager). You will not be able to do a better job than the NT Kernal can.
posted by jeffamaphone at 10:16 AM on January 23