Shouldn't new windows always appear as the top window?

[dencorso]

In IE7 and Win XP, if I go to Favorites, then right-click on any link and select Properties, the Properties window duly opens, but it appears *underneath* the currently active window. This has been happening for some time to me, and today I noticed an error info window just behaved in the same way. Is there some setting I can change to correct this? I've already deactivated the "Prevent application from stealing focus" tweak on TweakUI, to no avail. Help me, please, I'm baffled!

[Tripredacus]

IE7 also likes to (by default) open new tabs and keep you looking at the current tab. Maybe if you change the tab setting, the window setting will change too?

[cluberti]

In IE7 and Win XP, if I go to Favorites, then right-click on any link and select Properties, the Properties window duly opens, but it appears *underneath* the currently active window. This has been happening for some time to me, and today I noticed an error info window just behaved in the same way. Is there some setting I can change to correct this? I've already deactivated the "Prevent application from stealing focus" tweak on TweakUI, to no avail. Help me, please, I'm baffled!

No, the z-order is actually *not* LIFO, and in fact an application has to "force" itself to be on top via an API call if it wants to guarantee it, otherwise the shell gets to make that determination. Note that opening a window almost always results in a topmost window, but with things like explorer, or Internet Explorer, where shell and browser extensions (and even drivers) can inject themselves to do things, this can happen.

See here for an example.

[dencorso]

Thanks to both of you for your replies.

You set me thinking and I've come with a workaround: I've installed NirSoft's WinExp 1.30 in XP and it lets me bring forth any window in a few clicks, which is much better, actually, than delving in to get at it. Yet, in Win 98SE with IE6, I'm used to see the properties window appear on top... Do you perhaps know of some utility to alter the z-order in even less clicks than needed with WinExp?

[dencorso]

For anyone annoyed by the bug described in this thread, upgrading to IE8 is the definitive solution, since this issue was resolved in IE8.

[cluberti]

You probably could have achieved the same results by re-registering a few binaries (like shdocvw, shell32, and perhaps ole32 and oleaut32). IE doesn't control it, so what you did during the upgrade was to verify / change the registry for the installed components, and re-register all the dll's. You probably could have just done the latter and fixed it as well .