Saturday, January 27, 2018

Solution for repeated popups (window or dialog) in windows

Many of us encounter apps which repeatedly show some UI on top of desktop. Internet Download Accelerator free version shows active download in a small dialog window. Total dialog depends upon how many active downloads are there. I am getting 3 downloading windows. IDA is one of best download manager i have used. But this thing irritated me. I am a Linux user and don't use windows much so wanted a free solution. Below is the solution to get rid of such situation.


Notes:

This method was tested on Windows 8.1 Pro and worked without issues. I cannot assume or assure it will work forever.



Solution:

Enable Multiple desktops in Windows and run all those apps who's UI repeatedly get on top to secondary desktops. Simplest multiple desktop app called Desktops (61KB) is provided my Microsoft here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/desktops. Download this app and below is the screenshot of this app which runs on main Desktop i.e. desktop 1. Another multiple desktop app is Dexpot
























In screenshot i have assigned Alt+Ctrl+Function keys to switch to desktops. Don't forget to enable Run at logon option.


Exit all apps which you want to switch to Desktop 2 or above. Switch to desktop 2 by pressing Atl+Ctrl+Fn 2. Now a new desktop is started looking like fresh logon. Now start any app here. Below screenshot shows IDA running in Desktop 2.







Probably another solution or simply suggestion. There are window killer apps which can detect a window by monitoring all desktop windows and kill them on basis of our set criteria. Hooks on windows allow such things. I will not involve much into this but i can say i have used such apps which are made by rare developers.


This solves the irritating IDA active download popups whenever new download starts. A free solution for IDA repeated popups.