I seem to be having a strange problem with Carmageddon 2, or at least I think I do. Every time after I play the game, several other games (Doom, Hexen, Pocket Tanks, Carmageddon 2 included) minimize on startup and stay that way.
Restarting my computer makes the problem go away, but I am hesitant to play Carmageddon 2 until the problem is found. A non-bought downloaded version worked and didn't create this problem (it didn't have any sound) so I think it might have something to do with the glide wrapper, but that is just speculation. Has this happened to anyone else, or does anyone know a way to fix this?

Since Doom and Hexen have it too you can be certain it isn't the glidewrapper as these games don't use it.
By any chance, have you Comodo installed?

No, I have Avira. Also, Doom and Hexen are affected by the problem, but they do not cause it.

How are you running Doom and Hexen anyway? DOSBox or some engine port?

I am using Zdoom, but the Dosbox version is affected also.

Well, as DOSBox and ZDoom are different programs and work differently, and definitely differently to Carmageddon 2, I'm going to say that it isn't the games that are causing this minimizing problem.

My first thought would be as Strijkbout mentioned, looking at Firewall, but also looking at anti-virus. I know my AV (I use Avast) picks up on some executables and runs them in sandbox mode for testing before minimizing it and asking me if it is okay. Once I've told it is okay it doesn't ask again.

However, you could try making sure all your libraries are up to date, such as DirectX, .NET and the various VB Runtimes. Don't know whether they'll make a difference but it wouldn't do any harm to be up to date with them.

Oh, and check your graphics driver in case it is that that isn't handling the games well.

How would I check my driver to see if it is handling Carma 2 well? It handles Doom and Hexen fine, but the problem only starts after I exit out of Carma 2. Does it run any background processes that don't exit properly or something?

You can only try different driver versions to see how they get on with the games. There are no other checks as such.

You did say Doom and Hexen were affected too, now you say they are fine. Which is it?

Also, there is an issue when exiting Carmageddon 2 even on non-GOG versions (like mine). I think the v2 Super Patch is the origin of the exit issue, and GOG uses a modified super patched version as far as I'm aware. Basically, it causes an error when quitting the game and for me leaves a black screen that eventually shows an error message (I have to press Alt-Tab to get to the error message in order to click okay to get back to the desktop).

Thanks for clarifying.

The only thing I can find are these:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/516258/games-keep-minimizing-something-is-stealing-focus/
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/516262/games-minimising-on-startup-something-is-stealing-focus/

Either you are Cthulhusquid or someone else is having the same problem.

Both of those are mine.

This is so weird. Now the other games actually work after I play Carma 2? For some reason, the .exe now doesn't respond when exiting, so I have to kill it using the task manger (this is actually much more preferable than what was happening before). Before, it just quit and didn't "not respond". What the heck is going on here?

I just got the GOG version of Carmageddon 2 - as it was in the sale and I want the fact that it plays music from files natively meaning I don't have to run a music player in the background.

When I exit the game, where my non-GOG version (running Super Patch v2) gave a black screen and error message, this one returns to the desktop but it appears to be frozen (no mouse or anything). However, leave it a few moments and the Carmageddon 2 game exe finally kills itself off and the mouse comes back. So, for me, all is well, it just takes a few moments to fully quit and return desktop functionality.