@Windy,

I tried both settings with the same result. The only thing that makes the sub-dock appear in front is the Alt-Tab or having ANY other window active instead of the desktop.

Thanks,
Grouch

i never turn off the security program when installing winstep or any other program, in fact i always ignore the warning to turn everything when installing a program. i have built and done all the installs on more computers than i care to thank about, and with the exception of programs that give you no choice but to shutdown this / that / or the other thing i have never turned off anything to install another program.

I'm scratching my head on this one. The only thing I didn't change when I tested it out was that my dock was not set to hide. Maybe you can try changing it so it doesn't hide and see if that works.

I only do this with programs that I'm 100% sure doesn't have malware. There are a lot of security programs that incorrectly block certain functions of a program causing the newly installed program to have glitches. I've experienced this countless times.

As many other Windows customization developers will tell you, z-order problems are a pain-in-the-bottom to solve properly, *especially* when you are dealing with a raised desktop.

Microsoft does NOT want other applications even being aware that the desktop has been raised. As such, they make it very difficult to work around it.

When you raise the desktop, Windows does not signal this to other applications in any way, but it does some very special under-the-hood things to it and to the screen objects that belong to the desktop. Mess with this and you can get some very strange things happening, such as the Windows taskbar disappearing when you click somewhere else.

The only real solution for a raised desktop is temporarily setting all of you windows to be always-on-top while a 'raised desktop' is in effect. This can be problematic if you then proceed to work normally for some time in this mode, because normally bringing another application forward would cancel a 'raised desktop'. On the other hand, canceling this mode is not what you want when dealing with the dock.

Trying to work around this can create a host of conflicts - bottom line is that Windows was not designed to have the user working on a 3rd party application (that not the desktop itself and desktop bound objects) while the desktop is raised.

As for the invisible BitDefender window appearing, I really have no idea what might be causing it, sorry...

Jorge,

My programming experience is limited to mainframes (remember them?), so I don't know what idiosyncrasies Windows has. If the Alt-Tab trick works to prevent the problem, is there some way to simulate it when you "onmouseover" the dock? It doesn't appear to be a toggle, so doing it shouldn't affect anyone.

When I had stripped the PC of everything except Nexus, the only thing left would be a user-profile setting that could be affecting only my PC. I can't think of anything that would affect z-order.

I apologize for my hounding you on this topic, but the results are affecting three other applications. Two of these require a reboot to correct, the third just requires jumping through hoops because the app doesn't behave normally.

Thanks for your patience,
Grouch

I did try it with the dock left visible and still got the same results. That would still leave me with the dock taking up real estate like a shelf. That is why I like the dock that dismisses itself and hides.

I stress the fact that you have to click on an empty spot on the desktop before hovering over the dock icon to bring up the sub-dock. I've gotten in the habit of clicking on the desktop to deselect any icons that may be selected. Too many times have I clicked on an icon and dragged it to the trash not noticing that another icon was selected. I wound up deleting both items.

Thanks,
Grouch