Clicking on a window does not always bring it to the front (Win7)

Factual Questions
1

I got this new laptop a few months ago. It has Windows 7. My previous laptop also had Windows 7, but never had this problem.

I am in the habit of having lots of windows open at any one time, not just browser windows, but documents, Windows Explorer, my calendar, etc. Usually (and heretofore) if I click on the corner of a window that’s in the background, that window will jump to the front. Not any more. Or, I should say, not all the time any more.

So, for example, right now, I just clicked on a window that is behind this SDMB window, and it did jump to the front. But a little while ago, I clicked on a window in the background, and it didn’t jump to the front. The only way to see the window in the background (in this case, a Windows Explorer window) was to minimize the window in front (which was hiding it).

Also, often when I have a browser window open (Firefox 23.0.1) I’ll want to open another blank window, so I do “control-N” to open a new window. In the past, this has always caused a new blank window to open in front of everything else. (BTW, I have my options set to open a blank window, plus, I always open new windows, not new tabs.) But now, sometimes when I do a control-N, a new window opens in back of everything.

I’ve done some searching on this and others seem to be experiencing it, too, and there are a variety of fixes that seem to work for some people and not for others.

Any Dopers experiencing this? [Hope I’ve explained this adequately.]

ETA: Okay. Just now I opened two Word documents, one in front of the other. When I clicked on the one in the back, it did not jump to the front. The only way to see the one in back is to minimize the one in front. This doesn’t always happen, but I can’t identify the specific conditions when it does.

2

What about clicking on the appropriate window in the taskbar to bring it to the front? It doesn’t solve your problem, but at least you wouldn’t have to minimize the top window to access the window behind it.

Another thing to pay attention to in the taskbar is if any of the windows are highlighted there. When a given window is trying to prompt you or alert you to something, it will appear highlighted in the taskbar. Could it be that the windows that aren’t giving up the foreground are highlighted there due to some sort of alert/prompt/notification? Try clicking on the non-yielding foreground window and clearing anything that it might be waiting for you to acknowledge.

3

I think I have tried this and it has not responded consistently…but I could be wrong. Usually I’m just rolling along singing a song and I hit this block and I haven’t been paying all that much attention to the total environment.

I’ll try to notice this.

Just now, I moved my cursor over the windows as minimized in the taskbar and the one I paused on did jump to the front. I know there is something consistent and reasonable going on and I’m just missing it.

4

Also, if it is due to what I guessed, that’s a good reason to have the taskbar set to auto-hide, instead of always remaining visible. When it’s set to auto-hide and there’s some sort of notification on a window, the taskbar will stop auto-hiding and remain visible until you click on the window that it’s highlighting. That way, it’s much more readily obvious that a given window is trying to grab your attention.

ETA: Yeah, try using auto-hide on the taskbar, at least until you figure out if I’m right. If it suddenly stops auto-hiding, that’s because it wants you to acknowledge something. (whatever’s highlighted)

5

Good suggestion. I’ll try that.