Windows 10: Losing priority in active windows to invisible system services?

I'm not really sure how to title this thread so bare with me while I explain - basically for the last few days at times when I'm playing a game or watching a video in bed the main window I'm actively using loses focus to what appears to be nothing. In a video this means it just exits out of fullscreen mode as if you had clicked something else in Win7 (oddly enough this doesnt happen as much on its own in 10 which seems to have better overall support for that kind of thing), but more annoyingly in things like game if its not set to borderless window this means that it goes to desktop which can be extremely annoying if youre in the middle of multiplayer stuff. The only common thing I can find when this happens is if I open up task manager right away some windows service or another (System, Windows Installer, Antimalware Service Executable, etc) is suddenly using more resources than when those programs are just idling making me think somehow these background services I have no control of are grabbing priority off what I'm actually using for some reason.

Now windows 10 has a lot of background BS where it does stuff without telling you what it is and there's no option to turn it off so I'm kind of stuck on what I can do to fix this and was hoping someone here had ideas. I was using Win10 for a couple weeks and while it did to great annoyance run stuff in the background all the time (my biggest complaint against it compared to 7) it didn't cause window focus loss like is happening until starting around this week's latest update I believe so I can't help but wonder if something bugged out when it installed. Any ideas would be appreciated.

For reference I did an upgrade over Windows 7, not a fresh install

:)

 

Active Window losing focus/priority to invisible system services in Windows 10?

Hi John,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community.

I do understand your concern and i'll be glad to assist you.

Are you facing any performance related issues?

I suggest you to set the computer in a clean boot state and check if it helps. Setting the system in a clean boot state will help to identify if any third party applications/drivers or startup items are causing the issue.

Refer the article and check if it helps.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929135

Note: After clean boot troubleshooting steps, follow the section
"How to reset the computer to start as usual after troubleshooting with clean boot" in the provided link to return your computer to Normal startup mode.

Please feel free to get back to us with the updated status. We will be happy to assist you further.

Thank you.

 

Active Window losing focus/priority to invisible system services in Windows 10?

I've had Windows 10 for a few weeks now, however for the last week specifically I've noticed that my active windows are losing priority to what appears to be nothing at all. However if I open up task manager, I notice windows related services such as System
and Antimalware Service Executable using more resources than would normally be associated with their idle state making me think its something on the windows side causing this. More than a few times I've caught
Windows Installer showing up as active at these moments making me think this bug is somehow occurring because its giving priority to some background installer I have no view or control over when it runs for something. I can only speculate that's
what it is tho, Windows Installer hasn't shown up every time I've checked but I may have just been too slow on the matter.

While normally this would only be a very mild annoyance (you would never really notice just using the internet, and for a video player it just means having to activate fullscreen again - tho if youre watching from a couch or bed yeah that is kinda annoying),
because I play games daily the fact that at any time it will just take me to desktop as the 'invisible nothing' gained priority over the game I was actively playing causes huge hindrances in it to the point I'm considering downgrading back to 7 if I can't
fix it and hoping that stops it despite other advantages Windows 10 might have. People who don't play games may not understand it but dying or losing progress in them because you had something you have no control of take away your control of the game for 10
seconds is infuriating, more so in a team game where it may screw your entire team over when that happens in the middle of something.

Does anyone here have any idea what might be causing this and how to fix it? It seems to be a rather uncommon problem as I can't find much mention of similar priority-stealing nonsense by Windows services elsewhere. Note I have Windows 10 Home so although
I suspect that w/ Windows Installer involved it might be due to automatic app updates or something similar, I have no way of turning these off cause Win 10 is kinda junk in that area (taking away control from the user + telling you less of what it's doing
in general is my main complaint with the OS to begin with)

 

A rogue wireless driver has been known to cause this problem on a few devices. If you could temporarily disable the wireless adapter you can check to see if it is the culprit

 

I do not have a wireless driver or adapter. The mobo did not come with one (as the comp is 5 years old now) and I did not put my own card in.

 

Anyone else have ideas? I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure its when it activates whatever causes 'Windows Installer' to show up in the task manager processes list but I have no idea what could be doing it so often while I'm in the middle of other stuff cause the damn system doesn't tell you anything

Edit: Just disabled a few services/startup things including something called Akamai NetSession that was activating on startup and for some reason listed windows installer as part of it when you expanded it in the task manager so I dont know if that will do anything but its gone now (apparently it was part of some P2P thing? idk why it would have access to stuff like windows services but yeah its gone in case thats what was doing it - tho I read some things may ask to reinstall it later) Any other ideas would be appreciated as it will be a bit before I know if getting rid of that helped or not.