Warframe minimizes every hour

[DarkBlueReptile]

Hey there, whoever's reading... I ran into a problem that started about a couple weeks ago, which still persists to this day. Hope someone can shed some light on how to fix this...

Basically, when I'm playing Warframe, at XX:05 of every hour, Warframe just minimizes and brings me out to the desktop, and I have to press the icon on the taskbar to resume whatever I was doing. At first, I thought it was just a temporary incident regarding updating Windows and such. But after some waiting while leaving the desktop open, I found out that a random window was popping up and disappearing at that time every hour, which made me believe this was the source to my problem. Trouble is, the window goes away too quickly for me to recognize what program this problematic window is related with. I've searched the internet for help and learned of something called an event viewer, but the tool was too complicated for me to figure out where I should be looking and what these reports mean. I know this is a very minor issue compared to some crazy issues of the same nature, but it has happened too much for me to pull a blind eye on it. So, I am asking for help.

Is there a way I can see a list of programs that was opened/activated? If there's no other way but the event viewer to check out what's causing the constant minimizing, can anybody give me a step by step procedure on how to find that problematic program?

Would appreciate greatly for any guidance.

Edited June 10, 2017 by DarkBlueReptile

[(XBOX)cubeof11]

Open Task Scheduler, and in the Actions pane, click "Enable All Tasks History".  This will track the history of scheduled tasks within Task Scheduler and probably within Event Viewer as well (Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > TaskScheduler > Operational).

If you know the precise time it happens, have Process Monitor running at that time to capture which process begins running.  Note that this temporarily installs a device driver which might be noticed by anti-cheat systems, so I am not sure I'd recommend playing online games while it's running (perhaps you could run a different full-screen application).  I couldn't find details on when the device driver is unloaded, but I hear it's loaded into memory and deleted from disk, so restarting Windows should clear it in the worst case.

Edited June 11, 2017 by (XB1)cubeof11
Added a suggestion for running a different full-screen application.

[DeMonkey]

Are you by any chance running a trial version of Windows?

Upon expiry of the trial a pop up will appear every hour telling you to upgrade to the actual version. Said pop up will minimise certain games as well as video players and so on.

[DarkBlueReptile]

8 hours ago, DeMonkey said:

Are you by any chance running a trial version of Windows?

Upon expiry of the trial a pop up will appear every hour telling you to upgrade to the actual version. Said pop up will minimise certain games as well as video players and so on.

Nope, I'm currently using a full version of Windows 10. Also, I bought my laptop a few months ago, so there is no way I'm using a trial version.

[(XBOX)cubeof11]

If you're seeing a Command Prompt window flash on screen once per hour, do you have a recent version of Microsoft Office installed (Office 2016 or an Office 365 subscription)?  This is triggered by a background process scheduled in Task Scheduler.  You can enroll in the Office Insider Program's Slow ring to get the fix now, or wait until it's publically released.

[DarkBlueReptile]

10 hours ago, (Xbox One)cubeof11 said:

If you're seeing a Command Prompt window flash on screen once per hour, do you have a recent version of Microsoft Office installed (Office 2016 or an Office 365 subscription)?  This is triggered by a background process scheduled in Task Scheduler.  You can enroll in the Office Insider Program's Slow ring to get the fix now, or wait until it's publically released.

I don't have Microsoft Office or any of its programs (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, etc) installed. So, it can't be that either. Just FYI, my laptop is basically almost brand new. I only have Warframe, an antivirus program, and an anti-malware program installed at the moment. Also, I should say it right now that I believe the source of this problem lies in one of the 70-ish background processes going on (according to my task manager). But I don't wanna risk closing something without fully understanding what that's gonna do, which is why when I learned of the event viewer method, I was interested at first, but it's proven to be quite difficult for someone who's using the event viewer for the first time.

[nuwbertron]

I recommend posting in a technical support thread on the Windows Forums. You have a better chance to get an answer there due to the fact that there are many more "tech experts" on those forums than here.

[LSG501]

You've likely got something scheduled to trigger at xx:05 time slots.  I'd check things like task scheduler to see if there's anything set to trigger.

[DarkBlueReptile]

11 hours ago, (Xbox One)cubeof11 said:

Open Task Scheduler, and in the Actions pane, click "Enable All Tasks History".  This will track the history of scheduled tasks within Task Scheduler and probably within Event Viewer as well (Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > TaskScheduler > Operational).

If you know the precise time it happens, have Process Monitor running at that time to capture which process begins running.  Note that this temporarily installs a device driver which might be noticed by anti-cheat systems, so I am not sure I'd recommend playing online games while it's running (perhaps you could run a different full-screen application).  I couldn't find details on when the device driver is unloaded, but I hear it's loaded into memory and deleted from disk, so restarting Windows should clear it in the worst case.

I didn't know about Task Scheduler, but I did what you said. And I feel like I'm onto something (for the first time). At the stated time, when that annoying window popped, a task was displayed under the Task Status bar with the exact same time. It's something called "OfficeBackgroundTaskHandlerRegistration" doing its 'task registration' thingy. I said I don't have any of the Microsoft Office programs, but I have these "Get Office" and "Microsoft Office 2016 Tools" in my Start menu. Which reminds me...

On ‎6‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 8:30 AM, (Xbox One)cubeof11 said:

If you're seeing a Command Prompt window flash on screen once per hour, do you have a recent version of Microsoft Office installed (Office 2016 or an Office 365 subscription)?  This is triggered by a background process scheduled in Task Scheduler.  You can enroll in the Office Insider Program's Slow ring to get the fix now, or wait until it's publically released.

I thought this applied to when you actually have a working Microsoft Word or Excel or Powerpoint 2016 going on in your PC, but now I'm starting to feel like this is still applying to me. Anyway, I closed any background processes that I feel is remotely related to Microsoft Office for now. If this doesn't fix it, I could just outright uninstall those two tools above. Stay with me until I'm sure I've cracked this issue once and for all. But know that your tip has really helped me locate the source of the problem when I felt I was out of options. For that, you have my thanks. =)

[DarkBlueReptile]

I fixed it. I went into the Task Scheduler and found the specific task that was making the window pop up and simply deleted that task and the problem was gone. Thanks to everyone who helped me out. Thanks cubeof11, your method really helped me out find the source of this problem.

I declare this meeting adjourned.

Edited June 12, 2017 by DarkBlueReptile