diff -r b076b62731b7 Lib/idlelib/EditorWindow.py
--- a/Lib/idlelib/EditorWindow.py	Mon Sep 07 19:59:38 2015 +0300
+++ b/Lib/idlelib/EditorWindow.py	Mon Sep 07 11:38:51 2015 -0700
@@ -160,6 +160,15 @@
             # to 'wordprocessor' to achieve the same display of tabs as in
             # older tk versions.
             text_options['tabstyle'] = 'wordprocessor'
+            if sys.platform.startswith('win'):
+                # Tk 8.5 added an option to specify the selection color
+                # when the window is not active. On X11 and Mac OS X, this
+                # is an actual color, but on Windows it defaults to empty.
+                # Without this addition, if another window highlights text
+                # in the editor (e.g. debugger highlighting current line,
+                # find dialog highlighting found selection) nothing shows up.
+                # See issue24972, issue14146, issue22179, issue18590
+                text_options['inactiveselectbackground'] = 'gray'
         self.text = text = MultiCallCreator(Text)(text_frame, **text_options)
         self.top.focused_widget = self.text
 
@@ -313,36 +322,6 @@
         self.askinteger = tkSimpleDialog.askinteger
         self.showerror = tkMessageBox.showerror
 
-        self._highlight_workaround()  # Fix selection tags on Windows
-
-    def _highlight_workaround(self):
-        # On Windows, Tk removes painting of the selection
-        # tags which is different behavior than on Linux and Mac.
-        # See issue14146 for more information.
-        if not sys.platform.startswith('win'):
-            return
-
-        text = self.text
-        text.event_add("<<Highlight-FocusOut>>", "<FocusOut>")
-        text.event_add("<<Highlight-FocusIn>>", "<FocusIn>")
-        def highlight_fix(focus):
-            sel_range = text.tag_ranges("sel")
-            if sel_range:
-                if focus == 'out':
-                    HILITE_CONFIG = idleConf.GetHighlight(
-                            idleConf.CurrentTheme(), 'hilite')
-                    text.tag_config("sel_fix", HILITE_CONFIG)
-                    text.tag_raise("sel_fix")
-                    text.tag_add("sel_fix", *sel_range)
-                elif focus == 'in':
-                    text.tag_remove("sel_fix", "1.0", "end")
-
-        text.bind("<<Highlight-FocusOut>>",
-                lambda ev: highlight_fix("out"))
-        text.bind("<<Highlight-FocusIn>>",
-                lambda ev: highlight_fix("in"))
-
-
     def _filename_to_unicode(self, filename):
         """Return filename as BMP unicode so diplayable in Tk."""
         # Decode bytes to unicode.