arcane question

Hi all, don't know if anyone will know this, but perhaps you can point me in the right direction. If I manually edit the $KDEHOME/share/config/kwinrc file to change some settings (in a script, for example), how can I get KDE to reread the config file? In case you're wondering, what I'm doing is I have a load of automated tests to run but some of them pop up test windows which get in the way of my work. I want to set the focus stealing prevention policy to extreme while the tests are running and then set it back to normal again when I'm finished. Alternative suggestions for approaches to this problem would also be appreciated. thanks, daveor