Version: (using KDE 4.3.5) Installed from: Mandriva RPMs Currently KDE applications don't show tooltips in inactive windows, but sometimes it's useful (GTK and KDE3 applications do it). There's widget attribute Qt::WA_AlwaysShowToolTips which can fix it
Moving this wish to KWin.
kwin cannot change internals of windows. This has to be changed in each and every application.