How do I stop Vista from locking software

[TimothyB]

Damn this is getting annoying, and I can hardly find any topics on the internet.

Vista has a new feature where it locks you out of software, even graying out the application, and if you click, it says it's not responding. Thing is, the program is working perfectly fine. It keeps jumping the gun and it's killing me. This was never a problem in XP.

I use a lot of graphics software, which do a lot of calculations that take time, especially 3D. And so often, during those calculations, if you do something, vista will think the program is not responding.

Say in a 3D software and I wanted to do a test render, then I notice it's going to take to long to process the lighting calculations, I can simply hit escape if I want. But if I accidentally click anywhere, like if I click back into the program from another screen, Vista will suddenly gray out the program, stops drawing the software, and now the escape key does not work because all access is locked.

So there I am, vista telling the program is not responding, and I have to wait for the program to finish and vista to realize the program is fine and unlocks it, that includes waiting for light calculation and the full render that I'll never see because when vista lets go of it, the program thinks I did something removes the new render to clear the screen before I see it. It happens so often. And sometimes I need to see what it's doing to know to cancel.

That's just one example of how Vista keeps getting in my face with a lot of this type of software, and making things difficult. Like maybe a filter in photoshop being done and vista will gray it out thinking it's not responding, not letting you see the progress bar anymore, and just having to wait for vista to let go again.

How do I prevent this annoying Vista behavior? Can I turn it off? Can it just leave the programs alone like in XP?

 

[Finn]

Why ask that when you can just go back to using XP and have none of that BS?

Why do you use Vista in the first place? Everyone knows it has issues.

 

[dot_Zen]

For starters, Vista does not lock anything/anyone out of any programs unless they are pirating; which is completely unrelated to your problem. Next, you don't list if you've applied any hotfixes --a number of them address compatibility. Lastly, you specify 3D rendering programs: well I've worked/work with a few myself, and most have patches or updates available to address compatibility with Windows Vista; some work out of the box while others do have these updates available.


Note that, the biggest reason this issue is happening is that the program has become unresponsive. In an XP environment, the application or the OS itself would have already crashed. In Windows Vista, you should now get a dialog giving you the option to close the program or wait for it to respond again. There are also tools you can work with if a developer has not updated their program. But, listing the programs, how up-to-date your OS is, etc would go a long way into dealing with your issue.

Application compatibility Toolkit OverView

Edit: I use Photoshop daily, and have since Vistas release(and before), and have never had Photoshop crash or become un-responsive; CS2 or CS3. I suggest you list some hardware/software specs before you start ranting, so you can deal with the issue at hand.

 

[drizzt81]

Well, I think the OP is referring to what vista x64 business does to NXClient on my machine: It claims that the program is not-responding, in spite of it working fine. If I am fast enough to click the [x] on the `program unresponsive' dialog, NXClient will finish loading, connect to the server and run as expected. If I doodle around too much, Vista kills the program's network access causing it to terminate a short while after.

 

[heatlesssun]

Bottom line is that your apps don't seem Vista compatible and/or are buggy under Vista. This really sounds like a software patching and/or perhaps video driver issue. As far as Photoshop, only CS3 and above are certified Vista compatible by Adobe I believe.

 

[Finn]

For starters, Vista does not lock anything/anyone out of any programs unless they are pirating; which is completely unrelated to your problem. Next, you don't list if you've applied any hotfixes --a number of them address compatibility. Lastly, you specify 3D rendering programs: well I've worked/work with a few myself, and most have patches or updates available to address compatibility with Windows Vista; some work out of the box while others do have these updates available.


Note that, the biggest reason this issue is happening is that the program has become unresponsive. In an XP environment, the application or the OS itself would have already crashed. In Windows Vista, you should now get a dialog giving you the option to close the program or wait for it to respond again. There are also tools you can work with if a developer has not updated their program. But, listing the programs, how up-to-date your OS is, etc would go a long way into dealing with your issue.

Application compatibility Toolkit OverView

Edit: I use Photoshop daily, and have since Vistas release(and before), and have never had Photoshop crash or become un-responsive; CS2 or CS3. I suggest you list some hardware/software specs before you start ranting, so you can deal with the issue at hand.

Yeah you set him off straight allright! Whatever it is, problem or not, do not present Vista in a bad light..