Windows 10: Alt-Tab app-chooser does not go away when I release the Alt key.. (Alt-Tab freezes)

Mostly I see this talked about in gaming, but I don't play games


In my windows 10, if I press ALT+TAB I see the switcher dialog pane appear. Holding ALT and tabbing moves the selection rectangle to the next window, and ALT+SHIFT+TAB moves it back - so far so good but:


* if I release the ALT key, the switcher dialog remains displayed onscreen. It does not respond to mouse or keyboard input.

* while the alt-tab switcher dialog is open, everything behind it on that monitor is not accessible

* The app that had the highlight rectangle around it does NOT gain the keyboard focus (i have two monitors; if i select an app on the other monitor i.e. not the one the alt-tab switcher is showing on, the app i selected in the switcher does not acquire focus)

* apps stay running normally - I can click them in the windows taskbar, they acquire the focus. I can use Windows-CursorLeft and Windows-CursorRight keys to move the window around the screen and onto the other monitor (getting them out from under the alt-tab switcher) where they can be interacted with normally

* if I alt-tab again, the selection rectangle carries on moving from where it was before, it does not go back to the first app

* if I press alt+esc, the switcher dialog disappears and windows acts normally This is my current workaround to get rid of the alt-tab switcher dialog, though it of course does not changed the focused app

* if I use win-left and win-right to stick an app to the left or right half of a monitor, I note that windows shows a selection of other apps in the other half of the monitor, as a quick way to choose "which app do you want in this half?" - this panel of tiles also has all the same symptoms as the alt-tab switcher (cannot be clicked on or interacted with). To get it to go away I have to alt-tab to make the broken switcher appear(which seems to cause the "which app on this half of the monitor" chooser to disappear) and then alt-esc to make the broken switcher dialog disappear


specs:

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Version 10.0.17134 Build 17134
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name CJ
System Manufacturer HP
System Model HP ZBook 15 G4
System Type x64-based PC
System SKU 1NC89PA#ABG
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7820HQ CPU @ 2.90GHz, 2904 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date HP P70 Ver. 01.03, 26/09/2017
SMBIOS Version 3.0
Embedded Controller Version 70.99
BIOS Mode UEFI
BaseBoard Manufacturer HP
BaseBoard Model Not Available
BaseBoard Name Base Board
Platform Role Mobile
Secure Boot State On
PCR7 Configuration Elevation Required to View
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.17134.1"
User Name CJ\cj
Time Zone GMT Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 31.9 GB
Available Physical Memory 17.2 GB
Total Virtual Memory 36.6 GB
Available Virtual Memory 18.3 GB
Page File Space 4.75 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
Kernel DMA Protection Off
Virtualization-based security Not enabled
Device Encryption Support Elevation Required to View
Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware No
Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes

:)

 

alt + tab not working

i always just use the windows key to get back to the desktop [pops up the start dealy, doesn't need anything to alt+tab to]

 

alt + tab not working

Just found a really cool way to make alt+tab INSTANT!!!

In the launch options write the following: -windowed -noborder





This play exactly the same as fullscreen but now you dont have to wait 30 f*@!ing seconds to alt+tab back in!

Also you don't get the little purple/black checkered effect (only in Source games) from alt+tabbing in fullscreen.

 

alt + tab not working

*Confused I can alt tab back even if i don't have another program to switch too.

 

I'm having this exact same problem, found out that the problem is only there when I'm switching away from Chrome (which is a problem as all my email / calendar accounts are accesed via Chrome, so I'm constantly switching back and forth between Chrome and something else). I've already tried fixing it in a number of ways (alt being recognized as alt-gr, trying different keyboards, using on screen keyboard, etc.) Nothing works. I can also confirm this problem only started a few days ago at most.