3.2.2: Tray application appearing as process/alt tab window?!

[DingoSniper]

 

 

Reinstalled Malwarebytes today to get the 3.2.2 update and this crap started happening. Idk what's causing it but it's making it a huge pain in the ass to alt tab programs when i keep getting hit by this. Restarted MB with no success but hell is it annoying. Is it a temp fix or a bug? Please advise asap.

[DingoSniper]

 

It appears in the apps section when im 99.9% sure it should be a background process. 

[Porthos]

3 minutes ago, DingoSniper said:

It appears in the apps section when im 99.9% sure it should be a background process. 

It is there on purpose. It was added to fix another issue.

[DingoSniper]

Just now, Porthos said:

It is there on purpose. It was added to fix another issue.

 

So it's primarily a band-aid fix until the issue it's fixing is fixed fully? 

[Porthos]

Just now, DingoSniper said:

 

So it's primarily a band-aid fix until the issue it's fixing is fixed fully? 

That info is not been posted to my knowledge.

[DingoSniper]

4 minutes ago, Porthos said:

That info is not been posted to my knowledge.

Aaah okay, yeah i just noticed your thing at the bottom. Thanks for letting my know regardless!

[Telos]

@DingoSniper Just curious... Do you use Sysinternals Desktops program? It is known to bring background processes to Alt-Tab (and yes, there is a fix if this applies to you).

[DingoSniper]

48 minutes ago, Telos said:

@DingoSniper Just curious... Do you use Sysinternals Desktops program? It is known to bring background processes to Alt-Tab (and yes, there is a fix if this applies to you).

 

Nope, the only desktop program i use is display fusion for having two different background monitors. I've never even heard of Sysinternals Desktops before now. 

[Porthos]

4 hours ago, Telos said:

@DingoSniper Just curious... Do you use Sysinternals Desktops program? It is known to bring background processes to Alt-Tab (and yes, there is a fix if this applies to you).

@Telos The alt-tab "issue" is there on purpose.

[Telos]

7 minutes ago, Porthos said:

The alt-tab "issue" is there on purpose.

Missed that. Ha, now I see it.

[deek]

On 9/3/2017 at 10:52 AM, Porthos said:

@Telos The alt-tab "issue" is there on purpose.

Can you provide details? Curious as to why it was done, what prompted the necessity.

[dcollins]

@deek this was added because of another issue we experienced where the system tray icon was utilizing too many resources.

[deek]

@dcollins Thanks for the response...

I'll mirror, or parrot, @DingoSniper's question then. Is this a temporary bandaid, is the intent to resolve the issue or is this filed as "fixed?"

Edited September 9, 2017 by deek

[Briareos]

Chiming in as well. I hope this is just a temporary fix. I use alt-tab a lot and this is pretty annoying. Can we get an official reply here?

[SDGreen]

Backing up what @Briareos said, I also use alt-tab a lot and find the Malwarebytes Tray Application presence to be very annoying. Surely there is a work around for this and I hope it doesn't get pushed too far down the line.

[Telos]

8 hours ago, Briareos said:

Can we get an official reply here?

See post #12

[The_Mormegil]

Just signed up to notify that yes, this issue is annoying me too, and I hope that it's getting fixed soon. I know it's kinda petty and not as important in theory as the updates to security or whatever, but this thing made me sign up on a forum and post a message while security updates I just take for granted. I'm entitled, maybe, but annoyed, definitely.

[Briareos]

1 hour ago, Telos said:

See post #12

Right, but @dcollins didn't say if this was a temporary or permanent fix, which was my question.

[Telos]

It is temporary until a suitable fix is developed. I believe @dcollins addressed that in other related threads.

[dcollins]

I can't really say what the final solution is. We have this defect filed as we understand having that extra application in the Alt+Tab menu is annoying, so our engineers are looking to see if we can the application not show up in that list, but still not cause the resource issues that the fix was designed to solve. (Of note, the fix was not "put the application in the alt+tab menu", that was merely a side effect of the actual fix)

[Dimitrios]

Me also just signed up to notify about that quite annoying issue, and I hope that it's getting fixed soon...

Also, I have noticed that the tray app does not run/load as a service (resources issue, as you said, maybe?), so that it shows up on Alt+TAB list & Windows Task Manager.

By the way, perhaps you have to use the "RegisterServiceProcess" function to pretend that "Malwarebytes Tray Application" is a service (yeah, kind of) in Windows.

Declaration:
function RegisterServiceProcess (ThreadID:THandle;Flags:Integer):
Integer; stdcall; external kernel32 name 'RegisterServiceProcess';

Usage: {say in your formcreate event}
const      RSP_SIMPLE_SERVICE = 1;
      RSP_UNREGISTER_SERVICE = 0;

ok := RegisterServiceProcess (0, RSP_SIMPLE_SERVICE);
if ok  = 0 then ShowMessage ('Error Registering Service');

As you'd figure out a "side effect" of calling RSP is that "Malwarebytes Tray Application" will not appear in the task list anymore  (isn't that nice !) so, you can pass RSP_UNREGISTER_SERVICE and make "Malwarebytes Tray Application" a regular one at any time !

Needless to say that, since I am old Malwarebytes user (back in 2008), it is one of the most powerful anti-virus/anti-malware application and you deserve huge congrats for that reason!

Wish you all the best & keep up the good work! :-)

Thank you.

[tnittmann]

I"m having the same issue and about to uninstall the software and find an alternative.  Is there any ETA on a fix?

[dcollins]

Most likely our next major release (3.3) will contain this fix. No ETA on that though. As mentioned multiple times however, this has no negative performance impact on the machine, it's just a minor annoyance.

[Mwewe]

Here's a temporary fix for the temporary fix:

Activate another desktop (Windows key+tab) so you have a spare desktop.
Click Winkey+tab so you see all windows, including the MB tray.
While the windows are all visible, use the mouse to drag the MB tray window into the spare desktop.
Return to your primary desktop.

The tray window is now on the spare desktop and it won't show up with the alt-tab combination. To see it you have to switch to the spare window and use alt-tab.

OK, so it's a band-aid that covers another band-aid... but it works for me.

[exile360]

5 minutes ago, Mwewe said:

Here's a temporary fix for the temporary fix:

Activate another desktop (Windows key+tab) so you have a spare desktop.
Click Winkey+tab so you see all windows, including the MB tray.
While the windows are all visible, use the mouse to drag the MB tray window into the spare desktop.
Return to your primary desktop.

The tray window is now on the spare desktop and it won't show up with the alt-tab combination. To see it you have to switch to the spare window and use alt-tab.

OK, so it's a band-aid that covers another band-aid... but it works for me.

Yep, I've seen other users mention this workaround as well.  A band-aid it may be, but as long as it works then that's a win in my book.

Thanks for sharing this workaround, I'm certain many users will find it quite handy