Stop a Windows XP taskbar item from blinking forever

In Windows XP when an application that doesn't currently have the focus wants to attract the user's attention its Taskbar item blinks. Often it blinks 3 times and then stops, which is fine. However, sometimes it just keeps blinking forever. An example of that is Firefox with a new JavaScript confirmation dialog. This is really annoying if I don't want to switch to that application just now - I basically cannot focus on anything else because of this stupid blinking thing distracting me! How do I force all apps to blink only 3 times (or X times) and then stop?

You can accomplish this with Tweak UI, part of Microsoft's PowerToys for Windows XP.

Download and install Tweak UI (or click here for the 64-bit version), and fire it up. Expand the General section, and click on Focus. Check the "Prevent applications from stealing focus" checkbox, and then click on "Flash taskbar button X times" (where you can set the number of times it flashes).

The default value is 3 - or at least on my computer it is :)

Here's a picture to show you exactly what I mean:

Start > Run > type REGEDIT and click OK.

Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Create or modify the DWORD value ForegroundFlashCount and set the value to 3.