Comment by Someone1234 2 days ago
Windows has no such option, and regularly steals focus, particularly Visual Studio/Debug tools/applications loading. It had an option for a short period with the original TweakUI, but Microsoft removed support for it even in the registry.
No OS should steal focus, Windows absolutely is guilty of it.
I've found that the login dialog in Win 11 no longer consistently takes focus on the password field. Really annoying to login blind and find your typing was rejected because it doesn't do the sensible thing any more.
When I hit Win+L to lock my screen and come back 4 hours later to input my pin, I turn on my monitor (that I turned off because every 5 minutes Windows turns it on and off again), push esc or Ctrl a few times to clear off the image, and start typing in my PIN. 90% of the time by the time my monitor displays the picture, it's sitting at the unlock screen with the last 2 digits of my 4-digit PIN
Windows itself isn't guilty of this in my experience (lifetime of use until Linux switch last year), but other apps like shitty Akamai. Some years ago a coworker wrote this blog post and a simple tool to find out which programs are doing it: https://forwardscattering.org/post/30
Windows is absolutely guilty of this, and it is trivial to reproduce.
Reproduction steps:
- Start a reply to this comment in your browser, type some example words.
- Create a BAT file with the following contents:
@echo off
timeout /t 15 /nobreak >nul
start notepad.exe
- Run the BAT file.
- Immediately switch back to the browser tab, and place your focus into the HN reply box. Type a word.
- Wait for notepad to open
- Continue typing. Your typing will go into Notepad and not the browser tab you had focused last.
If you're a Visual Studio user, it is a daily annoyance. You hit Start/Play, go about your work, and then suddenly some time later focus shifts out from under you.
I'm running Windows (25H2, 26200.7462). I used the batch file you pasted and tried your repro steps, multiple times (I started writing this comment, in fact). It didn't steal focus. (Edit: See below). I'm quite sure that I haven't had a steal-focus issue at the OS level for many years, and I use Windows all day, every day. I'm also a Visual Studio user.
Edit: I tried it with Firefox and got a repro there. No stealing with Edge.
Many Linux display managers let you chose what to do, when a window requests focus. For me on Sway, it just turns the border red.
I chose what happens after. Can recommend. I wasn't even aware of my privilege.