Stop a Windows XP taskbar item from blinking forever

In Windows XP when an application that doesn't currently have the focus wants to attract the user's attention its Taskbar item blinks. Often it blinks 3 times and then stops, which is fine. However, sometimes it just keeps blinking forever. An example of that is Firefox with a new JavaScript confirmation dialog. This is really annoying if I don't want to switch to that application just now - I basically cannot focus on anything else because of this stupid blinking thing distracting me! How do I force all apps to blink only 3 times (or X times) and then stop?

EMP

Posted 2009-09-18T00:51:42.390

Reputation: 4 688

Oh I remember that horrible thing, don't recall seeing it on Vista, and no problems on Win7. – Nick Josevski – 2009-09-18T01:02:40.367

Answers

You can accomplish this with Tweak UI, part of Microsoft's PowerToys for Windows XP.

Download and install Tweak UI (or click here for the 64-bit version), and fire it up. Expand the General section, and click on Focus. Check the "Prevent applications from stealing focus" checkbox, and then click on "Flash taskbar button X times" (where you can set the number of times it flashes).

The default value is 3 - or at least on my computer it is :)

Here's a picture to show you exactly what I mean:

Tweak UI Picture

Breakthrough

Posted 2009-09-18T00:51:42.390

Reputation: 32 927

Thanks, but it looks like there's no Tweak UI for XP x64 (only 32-bit and IA64). I suspect it modifies the same registry entry Molly mentioned, which is already set to 3. – EMP – 2009-09-18T01:21:13.063

No, you linked to the 32-bit version, which is good, but I'm running XP x64 and there seems to be no TweakUI for that at all! – EMP – 2009-09-18T01:35:17.563

Dude, http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/TweakUI-64-Bit-Edition.shtml works on 64-bit computers. It's what I used on my downstairs PC.

– Breakthrough – 2009-09-18T01:44:42.277

Ah, thanks, the second link does work for me. Unfortunately, that setting is already set to "3 times" as in your screenshot. – EMP – 2009-09-18T02:01:17.070

Start > Run > type REGEDIT and click OK.

Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Create or modify the DWORD value ForegroundFlashCount and set the value to 3.

Molly7244

Posted 2009-09-18T00:51:42.390

Reputation:

Thanks, but it's already set to 3. :( – EMP – 2009-09-18T01:18:00.040

1change it to 1 – None – 2009-09-18T01:44:39.937

Doesn't help - it still keeps blinking. – EMP – 2009-09-18T04:04:53.527

Try zero? Would that work? – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun – 2009-09-18T06:35:13.537

1zero keeps 'em flashing indefinetely. – None – 2009-09-18T09:51:18.210