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I have a user running Win7 64-bit and when she hits Alt+Tab (to switch windows) and then lets go of both keys, the popup still remains. It goes away when she clicks somewhere or changes the focus but it’s extremely annoying to have to click when the whole point of Alt+Tab is to not have to click the mouse.

I have another Win7 64-bit machine that is working fine. So it’s just something on the machine.

Any thoughts why this is happening?

fyi - using active directory with roaming domains

5 Spice ups
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Replace the keyboard.

5 Spice ups
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Jstear wrote:

Replace the keyboard.

Agreed. She probably spilled something on the keyboard causing the keys to stick.

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Nicole.Frazier wrote:

Replace the user it will be better in the long run.

2 Spice ups
5

I have encountered similar issue with Alt key after remote control using the RFB protocol.

1 Spice up
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I did a simple test and if you hold the alt key after pressing alt + tab, you get same effects.

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She lets go of the Alt key and it looks like she didn’t let go.

I tried pressing Ctrl+Del and nothing happened. If Alt was physically stuck down, wouldn’t that bring up the security window with the option for task manager, log off, etc?

I will try replacing the keyboard to see if it is sticking for some reason after hours.

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If you hold alt after an alt+tab on a working computer and click anywhere the window stays up for me, so I’m betting the key isn’t stuck. It may still be a keyboard, though.

Windows might be quirky. Have you run the usual anti-virus arsenal just to see if it found something wrong with windows? Does this still happen if another user logs in?

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Matt_P wrote:

If you hold alt after an alt+tab on a working computer and click anywhere the window stays up for me,

It goes away for me, weird.

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I wonder if it varies by Group Policy settings. It wouldn’t be the first time I had a policy set one way with the understanding it was only affecting what the description said, then find out later it screwed up something somewhat unrelated.

Either way, replace the keyboard and see if the gremlins follow.

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Did you get a chance to test this out?

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when i replaced the keyboard, it went away. So i guess the key was getting stuck, but it’s weird because it only seemed like it would get stuck when using Alt+Tab. Ctrl+Alt+Del didn’t seem to stick at all…

o well, as @Matt_P said, we’ll see if the gremlins continue to mess with that machine after the keyboard switch.

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I had the same problem today.

Then I discovered that the same happends when you press Alt Ctrl Tab. Since I’ve rebinded some keys Alt and Ctrl are nearby for me now and I can easily press two by mistake. Most probably this is what happened, since my keyboard is 3 days old and I spilled nothing on it.

But alternatively, it is possible that Ctrl is the one which is sticking. In that case Ctrl+Del won’t work as Ctrl+Alt+Del as well.

Hope this will be useful for someone else too and he/she will save money and won’t buy a new :slight_smile:

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This is not a keyboard issue. This is a problem within Windows. I solved this issue for myself with the Ctrl Alt Del key combination, and hitting “Cancel”. Now the issue is gone.

1 Spice up
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GeoffSykes.OSG: You have solved my problem.

It seems that once this ‘bug?’ activates, if you hold ALT and tap TAB the task switcher app opens up. If you then release ALT the window stays open, even though it should go away. Without the bug, the window you have selected with TAB should open up upon releasing ALT. With the bug, the window doesn’t switch, and the task switcher app stays open… waiting… for something…

Pressing CTRL ALT DEL then clicking Cancel made the issue go away for me. How frustrating and interesting.

EDIT: Also, I’m using Windows 10 - so I guess this bug is still around. In the dark. Waiting to come out…

@geoffsykes3

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I’m having the same issue, seems to only happen when switching out of Chrome. The ctrl alt del trick didn’t work for me, any other tips?