Games (not just FSX) minimize by themselves.

Specs in my sig. Games are randomly minimizing to the taskbar. I can resume FSX by alt+ctrl + del then selecting task manager and "switch to", (as merely selecting FSX from the taskbar just makes that "ping" sound but the game doesn't return,) but my other game, NASCAR Season 2003, won't resume if I do this.

 

Is it something to do with running in full screen mode? By the way, my F1 game I play thru Steam never does this. FSX and Nascar are disc.

 

This happened when I first bought my PC but I thought I fixed it by turning off notifications etc, but it's happening again. I google searched but a lot of suggestions were over my head, requiring me to shut down various processes that I'm afraid would fudge something up..

 

Can someone offer up a solution? Thanks.

No "Pause on Task" checked in your settings? Anything new going on with an Antivirus program starting a scan process or update session?

No "Pause on Task" checked in your settings? Anything new going on with an Antivirus program starting a scan process or update session?

 

Going to have to check. I'm away from my PC at the moment.

 

Pause on task---- is that somewhere in my PC settings, or within games themselves?

Pause on Task is in the FSX settings and not sure of any other games since I'm not a "Gamer".

You could try running in windowed mode but the cause of the problem is probably down to some other software starting to run in the background - it could be something as simple as a program trying to connect to the internet to update and failing or a CPU intense program starting background tasks.

 

Use Event Viewer to try and identify the offending app. Note the time that it happens, or even better open Event Viewer before resuming the minimised game. Go to Windows Logs > Applications and check the list for errors occurring shortly before or exactly at the same time as the minimise occurs. If there are no corresponding entries under Applications check the system entries. If there are any matches you can look at the description to get the cause of the problem and fix it from there.

Unticked "pause on task" within the sim, also installed Gameboost to shut down background programs.

 

So far, knock on my head ( I mean, wood) so good. Was able to complete an hour long flight without it minimizing.

 

Haven't tried a Nascar race yet, however. Not a full one anyway; I raced a half length one, still without it minimizing.

 

Going to try Brian's suggestion above if it happens again. Thanks all!

The only thing that ever broke through my full screen fsx is my AV. It also minimised it.

Lately it happened a lot because something got added to the startup sequence. That was a process called powercfg.dll (or pwrcfg.dll or something.).

It was a legit windows thing, but adding to boot sequence is something the AV warns about.

 

Took me a few times to notice that was happening. Because the AV message disappeared while fsx was closing.

The same module got added at least 10 times so far. That's how I eventually noticed. (It may have started happening after I overclocked using voltage. Not sure. I should look into that I guess:) ).

 

I never had anything else on this W7 pc that broke through the fsx prog, especially when full screen. In full screen it's almost as if win7 takes over Pc's.

 

I Always assumed that was micros win giving it free reign because fsx is micros too. But that's just in my head probably. Never read it any place;)

 

all this probably does not help, but thought I should say.