Windows 7 Explorer freezes when alt tabbing from fullscreen program.

Archaic

Extraordinary Member
Hey guys.

I just bought a new computer running Windows 7, and it is a great operating system.

However, I am having one minor problem. When I am running a fullscreen game such as counter-strike or left 4 dead and I minimize by either Alt-Tabbing or hitting the windows key, it partially shows my desktop (most of it is blacked out except for the taskbar and sometimes another fragment of the desktop) and it freezes there. The computer is still responsive though, I can move my mouse, and when I press Ctrl+Alt+Del and open up the Task Manager, Explorer appears fully and is completely responsive.

This isn't a horrible problem as I can fix it by opening Task Manager, however it is an annoyance to have to do that every time, so I was wondering if you guys had any ideas on how to fix this.


My specs are:
Windows 7 Home premium
AMD Athlon dual core 2.9ghz
4 gb of ram


Thanks in advance,
rob
 
Last edited:
Hi Rob,
don't you find that alt-tabbing depends on which game your playing? Some seem to alt-tab quite easily whilst others get a bit 'sticky'... I was trying to alt-tab out of the Avatar demo last night and it just wouldn't play ball so I ended up using the task manager to do the same thing...
 
I think it may only be for bigger process heavy programs, I just fullscreened a small 2d MMO (which I usually play window mode) and it can alt tab out of that just fine.

It's just Steam games that I have this problem with.
 
I must admit I've never tried it when I've had steam running but if I try with Stalker:CS then no problems at all.. I'll have a go with steam in a short while and tell you what i find..
 
I just tried it playing 'Portal' and no problems with using alt-Tab... I'll load up something else later and see if it does the same...
 
What are your drivers like? Are they all the latest versions for your machine?
 
Device manager says they're all up to date.

This computer just came in last week, would the drivers not already be at their latest?
 
Not always the case I'm afraid.. If you give me a full list of your spec, motherboard ,graphics, sound and so on, I'll give you the links for the latest drivers..
The motherboard bios may also need updating but lets get the drivers sorted first..
 
Oh, sorry about that.

Hopefully this will be what you need:

Computer Type ACPI x64-based PC
Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
CPU Type DualCore AMD Athlon II X2 245, 2780 MHz (14.5 x 192)
Motherboard Chipset nVIDIA nForce 6150SE-430, AMD K10
DIMM1: Kingston 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (6-6-6-18 @ 400 MHz) (5-5-5-15 @ 333 MHz) (4-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz)
BIOS Type AMI (09/25/09)

Display:
Video Adapter ATI Radeon HD 4350 (512 MB)
3D Accelerator ATI Radeon HD 4350 (RV710)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter ATI Radeon HDMI @ ATI RV710/730/740 - High Definition Audio Controller
Audio Adapter nVIDIA nForce 6100-400/405/420/430 (MCP61) - High Definition Audio Controller

If you need any more information, let me know.
 
Alright, after updating all of my drivers that you posted it definitely does it alot less.

It does it on occasion every now and then, but much more rarely now. which I can live with.


Thanks alot for your help
 
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