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In a couple little utility apps I've made, I have a menu selection for this. When I do offer that option, I also offer one to make the window transparent when not top in the z-order, and a transparency percent. So even though it could be stay on top, you can still see thru it. It has it's uses.
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I have a feeling this is not a bug in the topmost window handling in the application, but in Windows' management of which application it decides is the foreground app. There have been numerous changes to the foreground decision logic during Windows 7, 10, and 11. Some of the changes were hailed by Microsoft that they gave the user more control, and disallowed applications from the annoying tendency of grabbing the foreground. I also have the feeling some of these changes have been 'internal' in order to handle task bar notification balloons and such. There are also problems with legacy API's (for example, some message box options) that assume foreground behaviors that are no longer certain.
TL;DR - It's complicated, from some perspectives it's broke, and they ain't gonna fix it.
Software Zen: delete this;
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This is the closest thing to a possible explanation as I've seen throughout this entire thread; seems like some people have missed my point, or intentionally ignored it.
Gary Wheeler wrote: TL;DR - It's complicated, from some perspectives it's broke, and they ain't gonna fix it.
No feature is ever so simple that MS can't find a way to complicate it to the point where it becomes buggy.
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Windows PowerToys has a feature to toggle any app to become top-most. It would be cool for that feature to notify you which apps are already top-most, and flip that switch off if they try to force being top-most.
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That's an intriguing idea.
If it was such a big hassle, I just might throw something together to periodically pool all windows and look which has the attribute, and log when the topmost flag gets assigned to a window - that might help narrow down what actually triggers it.
But, it's still so rare I don't think I'd invest the time in doing that. Every time I've seen this happen, closing/restarting the app is all that's needed to get the window behaving normally again, and I can certainly live with that.
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POWER TOOLS πͺ POWER, FLEX
came to say same.
And Media Player Classic has 3 options, for all the uhm "home movies" I watch. πΆ
always on top
on top while playing π
off
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No, I have not seen windows forcibly moved underneath an "always on top" window, but I have often waited for some function in an app to be done with a spinning GIF indicating that it is working on the task, then several minutes later, maybe after I have given up and aborted the operation, find that there was a required dialog to continue that process underneath the main window that I was waiting on. That's one case where such dialogs should be "always on top", so I don't miss them.
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MessageBox.Show( "blah" );
...with no parent param specified will often result in that sort of thing. If you've switched to another app before the popup appears, giving focus back to the app will NOT bring the popup back from behind whatever it's hiding.
Set your message box parents, people!!
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I've recently started using "EPG Centre", an app that reads the EPG that's broadcast by Freeview. Its progress bar is always on top. It takes several minutes to read the EPG, so I start it and then let it run in the background, but the progress bar stays on top, for no reason.
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Sounds like in this case, it was intentionally designed this way. Clearly these guys think they're so important the progress bar must always remain visible...
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Managed code or unmanaged code? Could a memory leak or uninitialized pointer flip the always on top setting for a long running app? Even managed code can be leaky, but usually you just run out of memory.
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So I got my new laptop yesterday and it has Windows 11 installed.
First of all, I tried to sign in with my business email, as it's a business laptop.
Impossible.
This isn't something that's a problem with Windows 11, but with Microsoft in general.
Microsoft accounts are a mess, like a huge stinking pile of manure.
So I'm logged in with my personal account (I wonder how I'd do this for employees in the future) and I upgraded to Windows 11 Pro on my personal account.
That Microsoft, the company for businesses, doesn't allow business accounts to log in is beyond me though.
Now, I haven't actually used it yet (still downloading and installing all my stuff), but I already hate the new taskbar.
I don't even mind that it's centered, but the only option for your applications is an icon with multiple instances of the same app grouped together.
You can't see how many instances of Visual Studio are open and you need to hover first to select the one you want.
That's an additional action each time I need to open or switch an app.
This has been around for a long time, but you could always override this in settings to ungroup and show names too.
No more overriding in Windows 11, this is it now.
The start menu got a makeover too.
Where I could group applications and even name those groups in Windows 10 (it did that really well!) it's down to just a list in Windows 11.
I have about 35 apps pinned and grouped in Windows 10, the kind I use regularly, but not daily, easily accessible from my start menu.
Well, goodbye to easy access.
Oh yeah, I do get a whole bar of "recommended" apps that I don't want and I can make it a little smaller, but not remove it.
The next issue I found, which is small, but so easy to do better, is your user folder.
It's simply the first five letters of your name, so I'm "sande" now.
No way to change this without going into regedit and hoping nothing will break (haven't changed it (yet)).
Is this the 80's where we had to resort to cryptic naming to save some bytes? 
This is the thing I'm doing with Windows, logging in and opening and switching applications, and they've messed it up.
I wonder what more I'll find, but I'm not convinced it will be for the better.
Why!? Probably because it looks just a little bit more sleek.
It's been form over function for many applications for years
At least responses and performance seem to be great, but that's always been true for every freshly installed computer.
If I didn't really need Windows for work I might've switched to Linux at this point 
(For those who're going to say Visual Studio etc. now work on Linux, I need to maintain some old WinForms and Crystal Reports applications )
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The user name problem has been around for years, I've fixed in win10 and win7.
A quick search shows it can still be changed. For example this is the first link, haven't tried it nor read it in detail, but it looked similar to the win10 solution
How to Change User Name and Account Name in Windows 11? - Windows 11 Community[^]
The taskbar I believe you can fix.
The new start menu is probably the main reason I haven't upgraded. I think I'll wait until win12 (I've always skipped a version windows anyway).
// TODO: Insert something here Top ten reasons why I'm lazy
1.
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yacCarsten wrote: A quick search shows it can still be changed.
Yeah, when you really know what you're doing and fancy going into the registry.
And it might break applications (as is always the case when you go snooping around in the registry), according to another link I've found.
This has never been a problem for me on Windows 10 
yacCarsten wrote: The taskbar I believe you can fix.
I've googled, but same thing.
Only when you want to make changes in the registry, and according to some sites not even that works anymore.
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Sander Rossel wrote: yacCarsten wrote:The taskbar I believe you can fix.I've googled, but same thing.
Only when you want to make changes in the registry, and according to some sites not even that works anymore.
You can move the Taskbar to the left (or centre) without risking the Registry ...
Settings > Personalisation > Taskbar > Taskbar alignment > Left
As for the username truncating to 5 chars, this also happened on Windows 10. I only have 4 letters in my surname so, on W10 and W11, Windows pads it out to 5 chars by adding a '0' 
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jsc42 wrote: You can move the Taskbar to the left (or centre)
Yeah, I'm not even bothered by it being centered.
In fact, I think it's better when the icons are like this.
I'm not completely against change, only when it's quantifiably bad 
jsc42 wrote: As for the username truncating to 5 chars, this also happened on Windows 10.
Weird, I've never changed it and my user folder is my full name 
Maybe it only happened in later version of Windows 10?
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Sander Rossel wrote: Weird, I've never changed it and my user folder is my full name
Maybe it only happened in later version of Windows 10?
I've had Win10 installed on my NUC since very early versions, and it used a truncated version of my name for the profile folder. I've never tried to fix it, so of course every upgrade after that just keeps using whatever's already there. So, definitely not unique to "later" versions of Windows 10.
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The task bar registry changes no longer work. They worked for about the first six months of Windows 11 and then Microsoft disabled them via an update.
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Because ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) you and your wishes to customize your OS to your own needs.
Sounds more like AppleSoft to me
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Yeah - I agree. Microsoft keeps kowtowing to the braindead Apple and Android UI designs.
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"it's been around for years"
And yet a new OS 2 generations past still has the problem?
This is exactly what is wrong with Microsoft.
Charlie Gilley
βThey who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.β BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Sander Rossel wrote: Where I could group applications and even name those groups in Windows 10 (it did that really well!) it's down to just a list in Windows 11.
Make sure you've got the 22H2 update, which should reenable start menu folders. It's not a perfect replacement for the Windows 10 menu, but it's better than the original release.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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I do have the 22H2 update.
You've got to wonder why they keep pushing this design even though they get backlash in every new Windows and have to make fixes for every new Windows too.
I can only imagine there's some designer over at Microsoft who's like "Am I out of touch? No, it's the users that are wrong!"
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Because hydrocephelic program managers try to get promoted by creating new things that aren't quite windows, and when they fail ram the unpolishable turds into the base OS. See the Win8 Start Screen and UWP apps.
The w11 startmenu and taskbar are cluster ed garbage fires because they were written from scratch for another halfbaked attempt to get back into smaller fondleslabs.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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