When I'm playing a game (doesn't matter which one), it will play for about 30-45 minutes, then it goes back to the desktop.

The game is still playing, all I have to do is click on taskbar, where you can see the game "tab" (not sure what to call it), and then continue playing.

Anyone else have this problem or is there something wrong with my pc? Thanks for any help.

Probably not, it sounds like something is running in the background and interrupting the game.

Do you have defrag or any other similar task scheduled to run periodically? Also, could you be pressing the Windows Logo by accident?

Make sure your screen saver is turned off.

Hi, Tammy64!

Do you happen to have a Logitech wireless mouse? The same thing happened to me just after I got mine, and it turned out I was clicking on one of the scroll wheels that brought up either IE or the Logitech control center.

Susan

Well, I don't know what it is. I was playing Sprill and Ritchie: AIT and it happened again.

I do have a scroll wheel on my mouse, but I'm not touching it. I don't have a screen saver. I turn my computer off when not in use.

I do have a virus scanner running, if that would interrupt anything. Never had trouble with that before. I just don't know what it could be. At least it doesn't stop the game, but it sure is frustrating.

Try turning off your virus scanner and see what happens. Most people turn them off while gaming - or they at least turn off the auto-scan and auto-update features.

If you're running XP - here's something interesting you can try -

Prevent Programs From Stealing Focus in Windows XP Using Tweak UI

I've used the option for other issues in the past, it's completely safe (and can be completely removed if necessary).

I have AVG 9 (free version). How do you turn it off when installing programs? If I right-click it, it just says "open AVG user interface" and "update now" (which is the costly one and don't want to do). When I had version 8.5, I never had that problem. I could right-click it, and disable it. I don't have that choice now.

Found the problem. There is an option in the Advanced settings. You can uncheck the Gaming Mode option. That seems to have fixed it. Thanks to everyone for their help. Much appreciated.