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Print windows not opening on top

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by forvirg

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Hi - tried searching for similar questions already answered, but couldn't find any anywhere on the net at all (including MS KB).

Myself (Windows 2000 Pro) and a client (XP Pro) are both having the same weird thing happening - when we go to print a page - in any application - the print dialog box opens in the background instead of on top of the application. Fortunately for her, she was savvy enough to notice that it was blinking on the task bar so she clicked it to go to it. I've looked, and it's NOT opening minimized - it's just opening at the back of all open Windows, so that if you minimize all the other open ones, it's the last one you come to.

The problem is intermittent!

Any ideas what's causing this and how to stop it? We've already tried repairing Office (BOTH running Office 2000 - not sure about Service Packs, but know mine is at least SP1, if not 2).

Thanks!

Virginia

7 replies

by thamer

May be the printer has a feature in its properties to always run in the background ... check it out.

by forvirg

The background properties was a good idea, but not the problem. The plot thickens - I was able to go over to the client's site and actually see what was going on - and what's happening is that the window is opening on top, but then becoming inactive, so she would have had to click into the window first to make it active (and she is not computer savvy enough to have noticed that before I went over there). I was able to replicate the problem on my Windows 2000 computer at home, too. It's only when opening something by double clicking on the document itself (be it a word document or spreadsheet or whatever). In other words, if you open Word and THEN go in to Open Document the window stays active, but if you use the double click the document to launch Word method it opens and then makes the window inactive. Unfortunately, since duplicating the problem here, I had a massive disk space problem and opted to reinstall my OS and software and have not had the problem since. She REALLY doesn't want to have to do a reinstall if she can help it (my hourly rate isn't exactly cheap). Any other ideas??

by rockwell

I have seen many people are in the habit of double clicking on everything, why I do not know, they just do. If you double click a single click icon, it will set the focus back on the program that is running, resulting in the print window opening upin back. If you are using MS products, Word for example, try using the Ctrl+P keys to open up the Print dialog box and see if it still does it. If it does, then try the other answer of uninstalling the printer and reinstalling it. If not, try looking at the settings that place the programs running in the background/foreground.

by forvirg

This was another good idea - and I thought it might be what was happening (as mentioned in response to the other answer, she's not the most computer savvy person on earth). But it wasn't this either. See my other response for the revised problem!Thanks!!

by forvirg

Finally figured this one out - it was Norton SystemWorks causing the problem. Reinstalled it and *voila* no problem since.

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