Switching to Windowed Mode at Random

[Ukthar]

<p>For the last few days I have begun to switch to windowed mode seemingly at random.  I mentioned this in a chat channel and was informed that the new AVG 9.x antivirus could be the cause for this.  Is anyone else having this problem and have you found a fix?</p>

[BDoodle]

<p>While I haven't had this exact experience myself, there is a very good chance that your anti-virus software or another background application is switching you out to windowed mode. This generally occurs when the b/g app. tries to open a new message window or process and takes system priority over the game.</p><p>To find out which application/process is causing the switch, open the Task Manager, when the game changes to windowed mode, look at the Processes tab and note what processes have a Higher than Normal base proiority. There will be some system processes that have a higher priority, they should be left as they are. How this issue is treated however will depend heavily on which process is causing the system call.</p><p>BD</p>

[TSR-DanielH]

<p><cite>BDoodle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>While I haven't had this exact experience myself, there is a very good chance that your anti-virus software or another background application is switching you out to windowed mode. This generally occurs when the b/g app. tries to open a new message window or process and takes system priority over the game.</p><p>To find out which application/process is causing the switch, open the Task Manager, when the game changes to windowed mode, look at the Processes tab and note what processes have a Higher than Normal base proiority. There will be some system processes that have a higher priority, they should be left as they are. How this issue is treated however will depend heavily on which process is causing the system call.</p><p>BD</p></blockquote><p>This is good advise.  Antivirus programs, especially the last few iterations of AVG, can cause weird issues like this with the game.  Have you tried disabling that antivirus while running the game?  If so, did that stop the problem from occurring?</p><p>If the problem persists at that point then you may want to stop any programs from loading into the background when windows starts.  You can do that by following these steps:</p><p>1. Select the START button.2. Select RUN, then type in "msconfig" (for Vista, type msconfig in the search bar at the bottom of the Start Menu)3. Press OK4. Select the STARTUP tab.5. In the list, uncheck all boxes EXCEPT for SCANREGISTRY and SYSTEM TRAY. If you use Windows XP, please note that SCANREGISTRY and SYSTEM TRAY will not be listed - just uncheck the entire list.6. Hit apply and then OK. Restart the computer and try the game again.</p>