I play the game in full screen, but sometimes my game will 'alt-tab' itself to my desktop and the mouse has clearly clicked on something outside of the game - as if I were playing windowed and had clicked off the game window.

This includes not only the desktop itself but the Windows Start button (it pops up like when you click it - that's how i know), and the tool bar in general.

While this isn't game breaking and the game is still running - I am able to bring up the game and carry on as normal - it is (as I'm sure you can imagine) incredibly annoying and immersion breaking. Especially as it tends to happen most often in a fight (probably due to the increased frequency of mouse clicks).

Have done a quick survey amongst my friends who also play and one other definitely has had the same issue, others aren't sure.

Posting here to see if anyone has had the same issue and to see if there's some common link between those of us that have.

If you don't understand what I'm talking about, you probably haven't had the issue, but I've tried to make it as clear as possible what is actually happening.

You've got something running in the background that is interfering, from the sounds of it.

Both of us that definitely have the issue, both use a Desktop Management System called Rainmeter. I had already wondered if this could be the common link causing the issue. But it doesn't do it on any other game I own (including many bethesda games).

Someone did say this when i asked them.....

" ... I've got two monitors, and I've found sometimes the mouse-lock fails, so all of a sudden I turn left, and I'm clicking in my other monitor.
Maybe something like that happened, and the input went to the desktop instead of the game. "

It seems odd to me that it should only happen with this specific game/software if it were an external issue.

Which extensions are you using in Rainmeter?

And it's not really odd since different software accesses the resources differently.

right... this is gonna take a while lol.

i have, the 'arcs' clock
gnometer:
system\multi-core
network
gmail
disk
clock
enigma
taskbar\system-uptime
taskbar\system-RAM
taskbar\rain
taskbar\combos\tray systems
taskbar\combos\date + week

i also run the 'fences' software to manage my shortcuts - so does the friend also having this issue.

Yeah, I think that may be the issue. Could you temporarily remove the two programs to see if it helps?

i will have a try with just rainmeter at first - to me it seems the more likely culprit.
as it can be completely random when it occurs though this will likely be a 'not tonight' response.

thank you for your help and i'm hoping it's that simple. - would appreciate it if you follow this (if you aren't already) so you see my experiment results, i know it's good to know even if everything's solved when you've been trying to help someone.

If Rainmeter is the culprit, you could then see if it's an extension or Rainmeter itself so you don't lose too much.

And I generally go through all topics posted in since I last logged in and see if something's of interest to me.

right, having disabled both rainmeter, and fences, it did it again.

it seems to randomly grab any item in the background, in this case it was a ventrilo window it clicked on

at the very least, i've now ruled out the two suspected culprits. they're both still installed but were not running.

so again would be interesting to know if anyone else has encountered this problem

What other background processes are you running? This is something stealing the focus away. That much I'm pretty sure of.

now this is interesting. i noticed in game, i had a mouse pointer showing on the left side of my screen, so i took a print screen to show on here, and this is what it produced

gah, i don't have enough posts to link it - will have to pm it to you i guess


evidently the game is not alligning itself properly or considering itself to be windowed when it's not.

i have ventrilo (it's not that - it does it when it's not running)
steam (obviously)
xfire
antivirus (kaspersky)
corsair headset control centre
dropbox
and i had firefox minimised (it's not that)

Xfire is known to have issues with Steam. Have you tried disabling that?

Edit:

I don't see anything in your screenie. Just a standard windowed mode.

The same thing happens to me all the time, not just with Skyrim. It happens with Oblivion too, and with full-screen movies.

I've never been able to find the culprit but it must be some background process.

HMMM, regularly have them both running, but in the interests of science i will test it.

ok.

so i've been playing tonight for 3 or 4 hours, and the problem has not occured.

whilst this can't be utterly conclusive, it would certainly appear that running xfire at the same time as steam was causing an issue. which is frustrating but not a disaster.

thanks for the help

Yep, Xfire is a known incompatibility with Steam. I remember there was a way around it, but I don't use Xfire so I don't know the method.