Games keep minimizing

[SarahB]

This has been happening for about a month now.  Whenever I play a game, it minimizes down to the task bar about every five minutes.  It every sometimes deselects internet windows while I'm typing. I was told it might have something to do with my processes, but I'm afraid that I will mess up my computer even worse if I try .

[Sidewinder]

Is this a specific game? What OS are you using?

Check for viruses and spyware and see what comes up. We can check your startup processes after we know the system is clean.

Hope this helps.  

[SarahB]

I'm using Windows XP, and its on both games that I play. These are Sims 2 and Masquerade: Bloodlines.  I scan for viruses and spyware at least once a week. It's never picked up a virus, though I sometimes have some spyware that I have to restart the computer to get rid of.

[Sidewinder]

This can be caused by driver conflicts with the games.  Test your drivers using DXDiag:  Click Start--> Run-->DXDIAG
Click the "Test" buttons in the Display, Sound, and Music tabs.

Has your machine changed since before this happened till now? Updated drivers for video, keyboard or DirectX...stuff like that.

You say "though I sometimes have some spyware that I have to restart the computer to get rid of." You do have the spyware program delete the spyware first, right? Just booting will not get rid of the spyware.

Hope this gives you some ideas of what to look for.  

[Flame]

Sara, for the Sims 2, do you download items and people, etc. from the Sims 2 webiste? It could be that some of those files are corrupted, and are causing these problems...

[glb]Flame[/glb]