Active window randomly goes inactive

[FishBulb]

Okay, so basically, my problem is my currently active window will randomly become inactive and I have to click on it to make it active again or wait about 10 seconds before it becomes active on its own. By inactive, I mean this:

It doesn't happen too often but it's frequent enough to annoy me. I did an alt-tab to try and see what program was stealing the focus and found this:

I also managed to pause the Task Manager while this was happening and sure enough, found iexplore.exe is a running process despite the fact I don't even have IE open.

Does anyone else have this problem or know how to fix it?

 

[Asus]

Another program must have something it needs the internet for and is using iexplorer specifically and not your default browser. What else are ya running there?

 

[FishBulb]

Hmmm, programs that I've actually opened myself are Firefox, Azureus, VLC, Task Manager, Microsoft Reader, MSN and Winamp.

 

[The Brick]

Xfire does that to me sometimes when it loads a new ad.

 

[FishBulb]

I'm not really sure which are the unnecessary ones. Well, I took a screenshot of my task manager when it happens and found that there are actually two extra processes that are running: iexplore.exe and WLLoginProxy.exe.
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii41/dvs_angel/images/taskman.jpg

Google tells me that this is Windows Live Sign-in Assistant which is installed with Windows Live Messenger so that's most likely my culprit. I can remove it, but I don't know what the consequences would be.

 

[FishBulb]

Um, yes? Was that a trick question? /scratches head

EDIT: Hmmm, I've taken a look at my Startup tab but I'm no techie so I'm not sure what some of them are. Most of the unknown stuff seem to be coming from C:\WINDOWS\system32 or just C:\WINDOWS so I don't really want to mess around with those. /scratches head harder

 

[FishBulb]

Would it do that even if I didn't have iTunes open?

 

[CyberPitz]

That happens to me. It's some random program I can't put my finger on atm, though. It does something, and makes the active window inactive. Drives me mad.

 

[Asus]

If you are still wondering about Windows Messenger then run the program and go into tools->options and preferences tab. Uncheck the 'start with windows' box. If it's in a different spot you still should be able to find it in the options somewhere. Then you don't have to worry about messing around in msconfig and do something you are unsure about.

 

[FishBulb]

I've disabled Windows Live Sign-in Helper in the IE add-ons so I'll see how that goes and if it doesn't work, I'll definitely be trying out your suggestion.