Program now runniing in background only. How to get it back?

One of my normal programs, which has been running fine for months, is
now suddenly running as a "background process." This means that it
reacts to one of it's key-combinations, but no other functions can be
accessed.

Until today, I could stop the program with Task Manager, and upon
restarting it the program would appear on screen as normal,and I could
do any function. Task Manager showed at as running as an "app" at this
time. But as soon as I minimized it, it would switch to background
process.

Today this also stopped working. Ending the process and restarting now
puts it directly in the background. No functions available except the
one using the control+n key combination.

Is there any way to convince Windows that this is NOT a background
task? And why did Windows decide that it is?



--
Someone who thinks logically provides
a nice contrast to the real world.
(Anonymous)

On Wed, 22 May 2019 09:36:46 -0400, slate_leeper
wrote:

One of my normal programs,

Are there any clues as to the name of this program? Maybe someone else
also uses it and can comment from first hand experience.


which has been running fine for months, is
now suddenly running as a "background process." This means that it
reacts to one of it's key-combinations, but no other functions can be
accessed.

Until today, I could stop the program with Task Manager, and upon
restarting it the program would appear on screen as normal,and I could
do any function. Task Manager showed at as running as an "app" at this
time. But as soon as I minimized it, it would switch to background
process.

Today this also stopped working. Ending the process and restarting now
puts it directly in the background. No functions available except the
one using the control+n key combination.

Is there any way to convince Windows that this is NOT a background
task? And why did Windows decide that it is?

slate_leeper wrote:

One of my normal programs, which has been running fine for months, is
now suddenly running as a "background process." This means that it
reacts to one of it's key-combinations, but no other functions can be
accessed.

Until today, I could stop the program with Task Manager, and upon
restarting it the program would appear on screen as normal,and I could
do any function. Task Manager showed at as running as an "app" at this
time. But as soon as I minimized it, it would switch to background
process.

Today this also stopped working. Ending the process and restarting now
puts it directly in the background. No functions available except the
one using the control+n key combination.

Is there any way to convince Windows that this is NOT a background
task? And why did Windows decide that it is?

So, you want analysis or troubleshooting on an unidentified mystery app
that you must keep secret yet you want help with it. Uh huh.

You could see if the problem goes away by uninstalling the mystery app,
doing some registry and file remnant cleanup, and reinstalling the app.
You could check if the app's author to see if there is a newer version
that states it is compatible with Windows 10. You could try
right-clicking on the .exe for the program, select Properties, and see
if a compatibility mode works for an old program that wasn't actually
designed as a WinRT app but is an old Win32 API program. I might come
up with other troubleshooting tips but they would be shotgunning even
wider for blind shot.

As for not allowing apps to run in the background, yes, there is a
setting for that.

https://www.google.com/search?q=wind...20backgroun d

Just remember that disabling this feature means apps cannot run in the
background, like the Mail, Calendar, and other apps that you really do
want active although you aren't personally interacting with the app(s)
all the time.

On Wed, 22 May 2019 13:18:06 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

So, you want analysis or troubleshooting on an unidentified mystery app
that you must keep secret yet you want help with it. Uh huh.


This group used to be mostly polite and civil, and I've tried to act
that way with all my posts. If I've offended you somehow, my
apologies.



--
Someone who thinks logically provides
a nice contrast to the real world.
(Anonymous)

On Wed, 22 May 2019 09:36:46 -0400, slate_leeper
wrote:

One of my normal programs,

(Event Manager), not sure why that matters. Google seems to indicate
that others have this problem with various programs, but no web page
I've found seems to have a solution)

which has been running fine for months, is
now suddenly running as a "background process." This means that it
reacts to one of it's key-combinations, but no other functions can be
accessed.

Until today, I could stop the program with Task Manager, and upon
restarting it the program would appear on screen as normal,and I could
do any function. Task Manager showed at as running as an "app" at this
time. But as soon as I minimized it, it would switch to background
process.

Today this also stopped working. Ending the process and restarting now
puts it directly in the background. No functions available except the
one using the control+n key combination.

Now the CTRL-N key no longer functions, either.

Is there any way to convince Windows that this is NOT a background
task? And why did Windows decide that it is?


During a reboot I happened to be watching the screen at the correct
moment. An error popped up saying "Unable to access startup
directory." Sounds like this may be related to my problem.

Unfortunately there are several folders labeled "startup." I checked
attributes on each, All had a black box for "read only." I unchecked
the box, clicked "apply" (including subfolders and files). But when I
check Properties for the folder a bit later, the read-only box is
black again. Same thing happened for all "startup" folders.

I suppose the error could also mean it can't find a particular startup
directory, but again no clue as to which specific directory or where
this directory should reside.


--
Someone who thinks logically provides
a nice contrast to the real world.
(Anonymous)

slate_leeper wrote:

On Wed, 22 May 2019 13:18:06 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

So, you want analysis or troubleshooting on an unidentified mystery app
that you must keep secret yet you want help with it. Uh huh.

This group used to be mostly polite and civil, and I've tried to act
that way with all my posts. If I've offended you somehow, my
apologies.

It was meant, as seems obvious, to prod you to remember in the future to
actually provide DETAILS, so others either familiar with the same
product can offer their experience or they can do the lookups for you.

Seems more like you're trying to shift the blame for being vague onto
someone else (me).

slate_leeper wrote:

slate_leeper wrote:

One of my normal programs,

(Event Manager), not sure why that matters. Google seems to indicate
that others have this problem with various programs, but no web page
I've found seems to have a solution)

which has been running fine for months, is
now suddenly running as a "background process." This means that it
reacts to one of it's key-combinations, but no other functions can be
accessed.

Until today, I could stop the program with Task Manager, and upon
restarting it the program would appear on screen as normal,and I could
do any function. Task Manager showed at as running as an "app" at this
time. But as soon as I minimized it, it would switch to background
process.

Today this also stopped working. Ending the process and restarting now
puts it directly in the background. No functions available except the
one using the control+n key combination.

Now the CTRL-N key no longer functions, either.

Is there any way to convince Windows that this is NOT a background
task? And why did Windows decide that it is?

Does the "Event Manager" software have 2 parts: a service and a GUI for
the user to interact with the service?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_...#Event_manager

Since you are asking about software, a name of who makes a program by
that title might help in researching how that program works. If the
software is an app (uses Windows RT instead of Win32 API), it will
update automatically, by default. If a Win32 program, it may have an
option to auto-update (safer would be to notify and you choose if and
when to update). Did this program get updated recently? Can you
uninstall and reinstall it without losing any data files associated with
it?

During a reboot I happened to be watching the screen at the correct
moment. An error popped up saying "Unable to access startup
directory." Sounds like this may be related to my problem.

Unfortunately there are several folders labeled "startup." I checked
attributes on each, All had a black box for "read only." I unchecked
the box, clicked "apply" (including subfolders and files). But when I
check Properties for the folder a bit later, the read-only box is
black again. Same thing happened for all "startup" folders.

I suppose the error could also mean it can't find a particular startup
directory, but again no clue as to which specific directory or where
this directory should reside.

Attributes on folders do not match one-to-one to attributes on files.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...tributes-of-fo

The access denied problem is caused by permissions you don't have on a
folder. FAT doesn't have permissions but NTFS does. To see if you can
access your profile's startup folder, open a command shell or in the
address bar of File Explorer enter:

shell:startup

That's the startup folder for your profile. There is also an All Users
profile and it, too, has a startup folder. To see it, enter:

shell:common startup

For either of those, File Explorer should open to the folder.

I'm seeing more users reporting startup program problems (but that could
be just me happening to hit upon users reporting the problem), but they
were using 3rd party startup managers to control which programs remain
startup entries and some even stay running in the background to warn
when a new startup entry is added or when one is changed.

When you boot Windows, note the time. Then check in the event logs
(eventvwr.msc) if something got logged during that boot that hints what
might've failed. However, if the error was generated by a startup
program (either as a shortcut in one of the Startup folders or as a
registry entry), the only way to see that error would be to check if the
startup programs have logfiles, or to manually execute the same command
in a command shell (so you can see any stdout error message in case the
program doesn't use a GUI window for the error).