I've seen the same problem. It's due to the way that OE opens the
dialog child process and maintains focus. If you click anywhere else
within OE it should beep once and return focus to the dialog. But it
can get confused and get into a loop.

You should not see a problem if you click anywhere outside of OE. So
you can click on the task bar or if OE is less than full screen
somewhere outside of OE such as on the desk top or another application
behind OE.

I don't anticipate Microsoft doing anything about this anytime soon.

--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm


"Sir Timbit" wrote in message
...
Hi there, I'm hoping someone else has experienced this and knows what
the problem is. I'm assuming the problem at this point is patch
related, but I have yet to find anything on the web about it.

Using Outlook Express, receive an email with some attachment, like an
Excel file for example. (You can send yourself an email attachment.)
In OE, click the paperclip so that it shows the file name of the
attachment. Click on the file name and you get the standard dialog box
asking "Do you want to open this file?" with either "Open" or "Cancel"
as choices. Now here's where it gets weird!

If you click Open or Cancel, everything is fine. HOWEVER, if you click
outside of this dialog box, the window starts flashing repeatedly.
It's like it loses focus between this and the main window. If I press
Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up task manager, quite often I'll find WINLOGIN
running at 100% CPU or thereabouts. If I wait a few moments, I can
usually switch back to OE and the window will have stopped flashing.

Initially I thought this was an issue with only Outlook Express.
However when I went to IE, it did the same thing. In IE, download a
file. You get the same box asking if you want to run or save the file.
You can click outside of this dialog box, and nothing will happen. But
move that dialog box to the right and you'll see the other window--the
one that shows the estimated time to transfer a file. With the other
dialog box still open, click on this second box, and you get the
flashing window again. Or at least I do, and lots more people at my
workplace. As before, I can wait a few moments, and then click on the
main IE window to make it stop, or press Ctrl-Alt-Del, then switch
back to the main window, and it will have stopped flashing.

I know it's a pretty obscure glitch, but I'm getting an increasing
number of people coming in mentioning it when they go to check their
mail in Outlook Express. It doesn't happen in Outlook, nor does it
happen in other programs' File dialog boxes.

Any ideas? I'm taking a test machine right to see if I can duplicate
it depending on the various patches installed.

Thanks,
Sir_timbit