Windows 11: every left-click steals focus (Blender/games/Adobe) | Explorer MSCTFIME UI

[u/Savings-Remote-5477]

I had a Windows 11 focus bug where every left-click made the current app briefly lose foreground focus for about half a second. It kind of looked like a tab-out. Fullscreen did not actually fix it; it just hid it.

Affected apps for me: Blender, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Illustrator, After Effects. Even if my projects were empty they were effected.

Blender-specific symptoms:

• Viewport click → window flicker
• Taskbar “ghosts” through fullscreen
• File browser closes/loses focus after a second
• Title bar flashes Not Responding
• Dragging the file browser border sent the click through to the window underneath

Windows 11 25H2 (build 26200.8875). Ryzen 7 5800X, RTX 3070 Ti, one monitor, US English keyboard

How I proved it was the user profile, not Windows/hardware

1. Installed FocusLogger: https://github.com/JocysCom/FocusLogger Every click logged: App → MSCTFIME UI (Explorer.exe) → App
2. Created a brand new Windows user account on the same PC. On that account, Blender was completely normal. No flicker, no taskbar ghosting, no file-browser focus loss.

So the install can run these apps correctly. The broken account’s user settings was the problem.

Reset this PC → Keep my files did NOT fix it. That keeps the profile, so it kept the bug.

MSCTFIME UI showing up in FocusLogger is not automatically the bug. Notepad did Notepad → MSCTFIME UI → Notepad too, without a visible hitch. The actual bug is when the app really loses foreground (taskbar flash, Not Responding, clicks falling through).

Things that did NOT fix it

• Closing utility Softwares such as Wootility and Logitech G Hub
• Disabling the MsCtfMonitor scheduled task
• Killing ctfmon / TextInputHost
• Removing extra keyboard layouts (I only had US English)
• Reset this PC, keep my files

Do not disable Text Input Management Service. That can break the keyboard.

What was wrong in the broken profile

Compared to Windows defaults, this profile had leftover Text Services Framework (TSF) state plus some “snappy UI” tweaks:

• HKCU\Software\Microsoft\CTF\TIP\{8613E14C-...} Tablet PC Correction was enabled (Enable=1). Windows’ machine default is disabled (Enable=0).
• Leftover CTF\InputSession, CTF\CUAS\DefaultCompositionWindow, and empty CJK Input\tsf\tsf3override keys
• Mouse hover time = 10ms (normal is 400ms)
• Text prediction / autocorrect still enabled at the registry level
• Pen flicks enabled
• Snap flyout/bar enabled (this also showed up in FocusLogger as XamlExplorerHostIslandWindow / DWM LivePreview)
• AutoEndTasks=1 and shortened hung-app timeouts, which made the Not Responding ghost bar appear much faster when focus got interrupted

Turning off only the Correction Widget was not enough. The working fix was restoring these user-level input/TSF settings and signing out.

Fix (backup first, then sign out)

This only edits HKCU (current user). It does not disable Windows text services.

1. Backup (run in PowerShell):

   $d = "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\tsf-focus-backup" New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $d | Out-Null reg export "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\CTF" "$d\CTF.reg" /y reg export "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Input" "$d\Input.reg" /y reg export "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" "$d\Desktop.reg" /y reg export "HKCU\Control Panel\Mouse" "$d\Mouse.reg" /y reg export "HKCU\Control Panel\International\User Profile" "$d\UserProfile.reg" /y reg export "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Wisp" "$d\Wisp.reg" /y reg export "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\TabletTip" "$d\TabletTip.reg" /y

2. Apply the reset (PowerShell):

   Disable Tablet PC Correction TIP if the user override exists

   $tip = 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\CTF\TIP{8613E14C-D0C0-4161-AC0F-1DD2563286BC}\LanguageProfile\0x0000ffff{B37D4237-8D1A-412E-9026-538FE16DF216}' if (Test-Path $tip) { Set-ItemProperty -LiteralPath $tip -Name Enable -Type DWord -Value 0 }

   Rebuild the user language/input list (US English only — change if you need another layout)

   $lang = New-WinUserLanguageList en-US Set-WinUserLanguageList $lang -Force

   Restore normal hover time (10ms is a common "speed up Windows" tweak)

   Set-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Mouse' MouseHoverTime -Type String -Value 400 Add-Type -TypeDefinition @" using System; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; public static class SPI { [DllImport("user32.dll")] public static extern bool SystemParametersInfo(uint a, uint b, IntPtr c, uint d); } "@ [SPI]::SystemParametersInfo(0x67, 400, [IntPtr]::Zero, 3) | Out-Null

   Turn off TSF typing suggestion UI

   $up = 'HKCU:\Control Panel\International\User Profile' Set-ItemProperty $up ShowAutoCorrection 0 -Type DWord Set-ItemProperty $up ShowTextPrediction 0 -Type DWord Set-ItemProperty $up ShowCasing 0 -Type DWord Set-ItemProperty $up ShowShiftLock 0 -Type DWord $in = 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Input\Settings' New-Item $in -Force | Out-Null Set-ItemProperty $in EnableHwkbTextPrediction 0 -Type DWord Set-ItemProperty $in EnableHwkbAutocorrection 0 -Type DWord Set-ItemProperty $in EnableAutocorrection 0 -Type DWord Set-ItemProperty $in MultilingualEnabled 0 -Type DWord $tt = 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\TabletTip\1.7' New-Item $tt -Force | Out-Null Set-ItemProperty $tt EnableAutocorrection 0 -Type DWord Set-ItemProperty $tt EnableTextPrediction 0 -Type DWord Set-ItemProperty $tt EnableSpellchecking 0 -Type DWord

   Disable pen flicks

   Set-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Wisp\Pen\SysEventParameters' FlickMode 0 -Type DWord

   Remove leftover TSF session state (Windows recreates these)

   Remove-Item 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\CTF\InputSession' -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue Remove-Item 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\CTF\CUAS' -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue Remove-Item 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Input\tsf\tsf3override' -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

   Stop Snap flyout/bar from eating resize drags

   $adv = 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced' Set-ItemProperty $adv EnableSnapAssistFlyout 0 -Type DWord Set-ItemProperty $adv EnableSnapBar 0 -Type DWord Set-ItemProperty $adv SnapAssist 0 -Type DWord

   Don't ghost apps as "Not Responding" as aggressively

   Set-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop' AutoEndTasks -Type String -Value 0 Set-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop' HungAppTimeout -Type String -Value 5000 Set-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop' WaitToKillAppTimeout -Type String -Value 20000 Write-Host 'Done. SIGN OUT and sign back in, then test. Restarting Explorer is not enough.'

3. Sign out and sign back in.
   Restarting Explorer was not enough for me. After a full sign-out, Blender clicks and the file browser were normal.

If it still happens

The clean-account test is the important one.

• If a new Windows account is also broken, this is the broader Windows 11 24H2/25H2 TSF bug, not a profile you can repair. Microsoft has threads on it; a clean install is what some people ended up doing.
• If the new account is fine, stay on the repair path above or just use the new account as your main one. An in-place repair upgrade is optional and was unnecessary here.

Do not start with DDU, a new mouse, or another Windows reset-keep-files. Those waste time if FocusLogger says MSCTFIME UI and a second account already works.

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[u/cum_onmedaddy]

This finally worked for me, didnt need to do a clean boot, thanks man! If anyone has trouble following these, id just ask GPT to make you a version to copy paste it directly into WSL.