Privateer 2 unofficial patch - Alt-Tabbing doesn't work, P2 steals focus

[avengah]

I'm running version 3 of the unofficial patch, and it mostly works very well. I've only had a couple of minor issues which may have been issues in the original game too, such as a crash at Hades while missions were active that placed Kiowan Cruisers there; I went to EXTREME distance and jumped away, and next time I came back to Hades during the mission, the game crashed. So I went back to a previous save and avoided that combination of missions - I always keep a save before accepting missions until they're complete to ensure mission-based crashes don't ruin my progress.

But I'm having a separate non-gameplay-related issue and I'm wondering if anyone can help. I'm not able to Alt-Tab out of Privateer 2 under any circumstances. If I try, Privateer 2 instantly takes the focus back. I don't want to have to play in Windowed mode to work around this, so does anyone know how I can fix this? I'm not using any compatibility settings and I'm using Windows 10. I'd like to be able to use Alt-Tab to check commodity prices in a spreadsheet for trading purposes. I'm sometimes able press Win then hold the mouse pointer over the spreadsheet icon at the bottom to view it, but this doesn't always work. All other ways of task switching also fail, with Privateer 2 stealing focus every time.

So is there any way to make sure task switching works using this version? Thanks!

 

[Oggy]

OK, I had a go last night and I couldn't find a way to get alt tab to work, so its not just you..
I'd taken to putting the spreadsheet on my phone as an image.

 

[avengah]

OK, I had a go last night and I couldn't find a way to get alt tab to work, so its not just you..
I'd taken to putting the spreadsheet on my phone as an image.

Really good idea, thanks!

I had discovered a workaround. If you press Win or Ctrl-Esc, you can mouse over the spreadsheet icon and window to view the spreadsheet. However, there's a catch: When the Taskbar is visible, never click on anything, especially not the game window. If you do, it will put the game right to the top, above even the Taskbar, meaning hovering over icons will no longer work until you completely quit out and restart the game.

Of course, this workaround isn't great, and it means any windows you want to look at have to be set up in advance. But it works in a pinch, especially if another device isn't available.