When I hold down Alt and press and release Tab, the small list of icons
flashes up briefly in the centre of the screen but then disappears (instead
of remaining visible), with the result that I can't tab through the various
open windows on my system. The same behaviour can be observed when using an
application like Visual Studio that makes use of Ctrl Tab for looping through
open documents -- the list of icons appears fleetingly and then goes again.
Even some tool-tips are affected; e.g., when debugging in Visual Studio and
hovering over a variable to see its contents, I now find that the mini pop-up
window flicks off almost immediately.

This has just started happening (at about 11pm last night), without my
having changed anything at all; when I stopped for dinner it was all fine and
when I came back an hour later (having left the machine on), it had gone
wrong. The change has survived numerous reboots and seems permanent; given
the widespread effects I've described, I'm wondering whether some low-level
systems file has been compromised somehow. This actually happened to me at
the end of last year, when I ended up reinstalling the OS, which is 64-bit
Windows Server 2003. (Why I am using a server platform for development is a
good question -- I am building web-sites and it is handy to be able to have a
powerful web-server available locally.)

All answers, links and other messages of support very gratefully received!

Ed Graham

"Ed Graham" <EdGraham@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:66CD3F75-E55C-4961-83B6-2C6789BD4CED@microsoft.com...
> When I hold down Alt and press and release Tab, the small list of icons
> flashes up briefly in the centre of the screen but then disappears
> (instead
> of remaining visible), with the result that I can't tab through the
> various
> open windows on my system. The same behaviour can be observed when using
> an
> application like Visual Studio that makes use of Ctrl Tab for looping
> through
> open documents -- the list of icons appears fleetingly and then goes
> again.
> Even some tool-tips are affected; e.g., when debugging in Visual Studio
> and
> hovering over a variable to see its contents, I now find that the mini
> pop-up
> window flicks off almost immediately.
>
> This has just started happening (at about 11pm last night), without my
> having changed anything at all; when I stopped for dinner it was all fine
> and
> when I came back an hour later (having left the machine on), it had gone
> wrong. The change has survived numerous reboots and seems permanent;
> given
> the widespread effects I've described, I'm wondering whether some
> low-level
> systems file has been compromised somehow. This actually happened to me
> at
> the end of last year, when I ended up reinstalling the OS, which is 64-bit
> Windows Server 2003. (Why I am using a server platform for development is
> a
> good question -- I am building web-sites and it is handy to be able to
> have a
> powerful web-server available locally.)
>
> All answers, links and other messages of support very gratefully received!
>
> Ed Graham

This type of problem is almost always caused by some change
in the registry. If your version of Windows Server includes a
System Restore function, use it to put the registry back to the
time before you had your dinner. If it does not then you should
roll your own System Restore, by using the Task Scheduler to
launch regback.exe which would maintain a number of registry
backups. This approach has saved me on several occasions.

Thanks very much for the reply, Pegasus: somehow I didn't receive notification of it, so I've only just found it. A registry change would explain it, so I think rolling back is the way to go; unfortunately I haven't set up the System Restore facility on here, so the regback.exe route looks the way to go. Can you elaborate on the steps required to "use the Task Scheduler to launch regback.exe which would maintain a number of registry backups"? I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to these things!

Thanks again for your help,

Ed

<Ed Graham> wrote in message news:2008778958ed_ward_graham@hotmail.com...
> Thanks very much for the reply, Pegasus: somehow I didn't receive
> notification of it, so I've only just found it. A registry change would
> explain it, so I think rolling back is the way to go; unfortunately I
> haven't set up the System Restore facility on here, so the regback.exe
> route looks the way to go. Can you elaborate on the steps required to
> "use the Task Scheduler to launch regback.exe which would maintain a
> number of registry backups"? I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to these
> things!
>
> Thanks again for your help,
>
> Ed

Here is a batch file I created recently. It maintains %count% versions
of the common registry files. It also sends you a notification when it
has done its job (because you need to be aware that it's there!).

1. Create the file c:\Tools\RegistryBacker.bat
2. Copy & paste the lines below into this file.
3. Unwrap wrapped lines. Each line must start with a two-digit line number!
4. Adjust lines #15-20 to suit your requirements.
5. Remove the line numbers.
6. Download regback.exe and blat.exe. Type this line into a Google search
box if you cannot find them: download blat.exe
7. Test the batch file from a Command Prompt.
8. Use the Task Scheduler to invoke this batch file once every week.

To restore a damaged registry you need a tool such as a Bart PE boot CD.

01. @echo off
02. goto Start
03. ================================================== =
04. This batch file will back up all registry files to
05. %SystemRoot%\Repair\%Num%, i.e. to one of %count%
06. folders.
07.
08. Prerequisites: - c:\Tools\Regback.exe
09. - c:\Tools\blat.exe
10.
11. 2.2.2008 FNL
12. ================================================== =
13.
14. :Start
15. set count=4
16. set Sender=support@ed.com
17. set Receiver=support@ed.com
18. set smtp=mail.ed.com
19. set Subject=Registry backer
20. set body=This is an automatic message - please do not reply to it. The
registry files on "%ComputerName%" were backed up on %date% at %time:~0,5%.
21.
22. call :SetDest
23. call :Backup
24. call :Notify
25. c:\tools\blat "%temp%\regback.dir" -to %receiver% -subject
"%subject%" -f %sender% -server %smtp%
26.
27. goto :eof
28.
29. ----------------------------------------------
30. Determine the destination for the backup by
31. incrementing the previous destination counter.
32. ----------------------------------------------
33. :SetDest
34. for /L %%a in (1,1,%count%) do if not exist %SystemRoot%\Repair\%%a md
%SystemRoot%\Repair\%%a
35. if not exist %SystemRoot%\Repair\Backup.log (set dest=1 & goto SetDest1)
36.
37. for /F %%a in (%SystemRoot%\Repair\Backup.log) do set /a dest=%%a+1
38. if %dest% GTR %count% set dest=1
39.
40. :SetDest1
41. echo %dest% %date% %time:~0,5% >> %SystemRoot%\Repair\Backup.log
42. set dest=%SystemRoot%\Repair\%dest%
43. goto :eof
44.
45. ---------------------------------
46. Back up the common registry hives
47. ---------------------------------
48. :Backup
49. del /q %dest%\*.*
50. c:\Tools\regback.exe %dest%
51. dir %dest% /od > "%temp%\regback.dir"
52. goto :eof