In W10 I enabled a focus mode setting that dims all background windows... now I cant find it again!

Richdog

Richdog

Richdog

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Hi guys. I'm having a weird little blip where I clicked to activate some kind of focus mode setting that dims all inactive/background windows. It's annoying as hell and now I cant for the life of me find it again to disable it. I tried googling all kinds of things like "windows 10 focus window dim" etc and all I get are links to 3rd party tools. However this was not a 3rd party tool, it was built into Windows and I am sure it had focus somewhere in the name. I can't find it with a search of the settings though as it just shows me a different kind of "focus assist" mode related to notifications.

Can anyone please save my sanity and tell me if they know which setting this is and where it's located? :D
 
Servo said:
might be focus assist, when in use it changes the name (I think)
Right hand bottom of task bar, click on the box and it should be there.
It has a moon icon on it
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Hi chap thanks for the reply but as I wrote sadly that's not it. :(
 
Donnie Fisher said:
You've not inadvertently enabled some sort of high contrast mode / theme or anything have you? I would imagine that the sort of setting you may have flipped might be hidden down in accessibility options of windows.

Maybe if you changed the themes back and forth between a range of different types, it might reset some of the settings ?
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Nope its not high contrast, it is a specific slider setting to dim background windows so that only the active window is lit. It's driving me nuts. :D

I would have thought it would be under the "multitasking" settings but it isn't.

I will see if I can reset things back to defaults, good idea. Thanks!
 
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Donnie Fisher said:
I dont think I've ever seen a setting like that in windows unless its some sort of add on.
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Now I am starting to get worried. I was so sure it was in W10... the only other thing it could be would be the HP software (most of which I uninstalled). I will take a look! :eek:
 
Thanks guys but I checked every single thing I cold think of and can only come to the conclusion that:

1) I uninstalled some HP software that enabled it, without disabling it first.
2) It was some Windows preview feature that disappeared when I upgraded Home to Pro.

I just spent the last few hours reformatting everything and now it's running sweet as a nut. This will possibly forever be a mystery. Thanks to everyone who replied to try and help I really appreciate it. :)
 
Donnie Fisher said:
Strange. Having a look around there does seem to be a number of untapped registry options that affect various dimming when you Alt-tab between apps etc ... as you say maybe it was a util or something that adjusted one of them.
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Very weird... but I do a have a memory lodged in my brain of changing a windows setting slider. I'm not going crazy, I'm not going crazy... *rocks slowly back and forth* :D
 
Journey said:
Used to use an app called Turn of the Lights or Le Dimmer, very much looks like part of Windows once installed, maybe it was one of those.
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I saw those when I googling but I didn't install or uninstall either of them. It was a brand new HP notebook so it was something part of that process.

Donnie Fisher said:
Could it be adaptive brightness you're remembering?

https://appuals.com/fix-windows-10-adaptive-brightness-wont-turn-off/
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Unless that specifically dims inactive windows then I doubt it. This feature was specific for that function and you could have 2 windows sid by side and it would dim the unselected one, whichever that was.

So weird.
 
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