Redirection Issue while playing WoW

Although this is likely not a WoW issue specifically, this seemed like a reasonable place to ask my question.

Anytime I am playing WoW and leave the keyboard/mouse alone for a few minutes, I get pulled back to the desktop.

I am assuming that something is running on the desktop that is grabbing the focus - but I can't tell what it is - nothing shows up in the task manager under the application tab (I don't know enough to decipher all the processes that are running so I only looked at the ones that took visible CPU and didn't see any I couldn't track down). I am running McAfee AV, PFW and Spyware and also scanning regularly with Spybot and Ad-Aware. None of these programs are detecting anything - so whatever is doing this is either a legit program or is not in the detection lists.

Any suggestion on what utilities are out there that can help me track this down would be greatly appreciated. I am a former s/w engineer (management these days) so I can deal with less friendly tools if need be.

 

screensaver perhaps?

 

I would definately suspect something in the background. If not a screensaver, something like an IM program flashing someone coming online, etc.

Or, are you saying WoW is actually crashing?

 

WoW does not crash - I just get pulled to the desktop. One of my friends suggested it could be McAfee checking for updates - he said he had a similar problem with Norton. I would like to find a utility that tracks programs bring focus to the desktop to know for sure. I will do a test by disabling the McAfee updates.

 

I had a similar problem with copied games. certain button presses or actions led to the focus going and reverting to the desktop. I've only ever run 6 copies on my system, and two of them had this problem. It may be corrupted code that won't work with the rest of the software. I'm no expert, but I thought it may shed some light...

 

To me this sounds likesome program is installed that waits for you to go idle and then doessomething. Google desktop , maybe thing that scan in the "background" will wait for you to idle, and what you are doing by leaving the mouse and or keyboard alone is just that.
The antivirus may very well be the cause ,as it might start scanning files when you are idle.
Alternatively, disable items from your start up and see if the problem persists
Finaly, if all else fails, just play in windowed mode and maximize it

 

www.sysinternals.com has some utilities like process explorer (task manager replacement), filemon(logs what apps are using CPU process) regmon(same as filemon but logs registry activity) .. they also have a bunch of other utilities