When another program acquires use of the keyboard/mouse/whatever you''re using for input, your program loses the device. You have to put code in your program to re-acquire the input device once the focus has been put back on your program.

You''re right this was one part of the problem. Thank you
But now each time i let vc++ have the focus, my game minimizes and enters the "sleep mode" loop... any way i can keep it from minimizing? i tried enabling the "allow multiple monitor debugging" featuree from directx control panel but this does not change anything

What should I do? Let my program run the normal game loop even if it''s minmized?

thank you very much for any help !