Penumbra Overture, frequent switch to my desktop

[flcn27]

While playing Overture the game frequently switches to the desktop for me. Sometimes I can't go back and need to restart the game. This is a real immersion breaker when things were just getting creepy.
Any idea how I can prevent this from happening? The only other program I'm running is Steam + Steam in-game overlay. Thanks in advance.

EDIT: As I'm writing this, I can hear a dog killing me while I was sent back to the desktop. It seems to be a problem with my mouse though because I had a similar problem in Amnesia. Sometimes in Amnesia my mouse cursor would instantly move to the upper left corner and then I could no longer move it around, forcing me to restart the game.
Now in Penumbra I end up at the desktop sometimes when I double click with my mouse (to select an item in my inventory) or sometimes when I use the left mouse button once (to click through a note or something).
I even had the same problem in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, sometimes when I clicked an item in my inventory I would also end up at the desktop. So, any idea how can I fix this?

[Tanshaydar]

This might be due to some other software installed in your computer. For example, Avira Antivir was making this for me, causing some conflict to Media Player Classic and exit the full screen in the middle of the video I watch.

Closing Steam Overlay might help.

[plutomaniac]

Close any other running applications is the background and most probably this will be fixed. If you find the problematic one can you write it here so that I can make a thread about conflicting applications?

[flcn27]

I don't have any other programs running besides Steam.
I turned off the overlay and now it is working fine (so far). So I guess it's a problem with the Steam overlay.

My specs:
Windows 7 32-bit
AMD Phenom II X3 720
Radeon HD4890 Vapor-X GPU
4GB RAM
Razer copperhead mouse

All drivers are up-to-date.

[plutomaniac]

so steam overlay causes problems, ok.

[flcn27]

Still got the same problem with the overlay closed. Got no other programs running so I have no idea what is causing this problem.
It does seem to happen less frequently though. Like once in every 30 minutes.

[plutomaniac]

maybe an antivirus or something. It is definitely another running program. Maybe windows aero, no idea...

[flcn27]

I don't have an anti-virus program right now (without an anti virus problem you'll never have any viruses at least you won't know if you have them) and I also don't have Windows Aero. I just got the exact same problem with Penumbra Black Plague (love that game btw).

The only other active programs I can see:
XboxStat (apparantly this program is always active, it has something to do with my Xbox controller for the PC)
PnkBuster
GameOverlay (from Steam)
Steam
Razer (Razer mouse&keyboard)

I'll try disabling some of them and see if it helps.

[plutomaniac]

alright, try and tell us

[flcn27]

I just tried to play Justine and got the same error I've had multiple times while playing Amnesia: my mouse cursor suddenly moves to the upper left corner and stays in it's place. I am then forced to restart my PC, even Ctrl + Alt + Del doesn't help.

I was playing Justine with no programs running. Nothing, not even Steam. The only background programs were explorer.exe, razer.exe (keyboard & mouse) and some windows programs. All my drivers are up to date too.

It's a bit of a shame because these frequent mouse cursor / desktop problems affected my experience with Amnesia/Penumbra a bit (obviously they break the immersion). I still hope that I can someday fix these issues so I can enjoy Amnesia again and play some of the mods (they're unplayable now).