ALT+TAB issue

OS: Windows XP
Processor: 3.10 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8200
(I have the latest drivers for all hardware)

I entered the second mission of the new Dean MacArthur story arc and the CoV load screen came up as expected. But when I ALT+TAB'd to go to Firefox, the load screen stayed permanently on top of everything with three or four small horizontal strips of "live" computer screen at the top and bottom of the screen. I couldn't ALT+TAB to anything else.

I hit CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the Task Manager to terminate Firefox, but the Task Manager was only visible in those three or four horizontal strips of "live" computer screen. I could see the main menu of CoX in the upper right of the screen so I clicked on Menu but the drop down menu was also blocked by the load screen. I tried ALT+F4 to terminate CoV, but all that did was activate inspirations. I used the Windows key to bring up the "Restart/Turn Off/Stand By" option and (from memory because it was not visible) was able to restart my computer.

What's the what on this?


P.S. The dialogue and one mission I did of the Dean MacArthur storyline were brilliant. I actually LOL'd a couple of times. And when I saw "You?" I was actually surprised - something that has not happened in a while in CoX. So, bravo on that! Fix the technical issues and "Thunderbirds are go!"