# Microsoft: How do I make it not do this?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-how-do-i-make-it-not-do-this/527049>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 30, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-how-do-i-make-it-not-do-this/527049 "2010-01-30T20:07:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2010, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-how-do-i-make-it-not-do-this/527049/3 "2010-01-30T20:35:46Z")

</div>

> [@beowulff](#):
>
> I don’t have an answer, but if you find misery in company, read this: [stealing focus](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=527470&highlight=stealing+focus).

From that thread:

> [@Stealing Focus](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stealing-focus/505823/41):
>
> The worst offender of all for me is IE.

Heh. It doesn’t help that the company’s connection is fairly slow (at least compared to my cable access at home). I go to the homepage from here, and it pops up instantly. At work it takes about 15 seconds, and Windows keeps going back to it when I click back to the window where I’m typing. As I said, this behaviour doesn’t happen on my Mac. And if a dialog box opens while I’m elsewhere, it will remain in the background and I’ll hear ‘Excuse me, [application] needs your attention.’ I can give it my attention when I want to.

I haven’t finished the other thread yet, but I’m getting the impression that there’s not a box I can check somewhere that says ‘Always stay in the active window’. Is that correct?

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-how-do-i-make-it-not-do-this/527049)._