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Hello tom.wildes, I’ll be answering your question.
This is a new feature which arrived with the fall update/upgrade, there is no way currently to turn it off but if you close all open programs they shouldn’t then reopen upon restarting.
Windows 10 re-opens all programs after shutdown / restart?
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Anonymous
Running Windows 10 Pro, v1790, build 16299.19
After a recent Windows update my computer now re-opens all programs I had open prior to restarting.
I've seen some registry hacks and workarounds on the internet but I just want the option to turn this off natively within Windows without workarounds.
How do I do this?
Windows for home | Windows 10 | Settings
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
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Anonymous
2017-11-14T14:05:04+00:00 A third-party program conflict can be the reason for this error. To isolate your concern, we recommend that you check this article on how to perform a clean boot in Windows. This helps eliminate software conflicts that occur when you install a program or an update. You may also determine what conflict is causing the issue by performing this method.
Note: Please go through the section: How to reset the computer to start normally after clean boot troubleshooting to boot the computer in normal startup after fixing the issue.
Let us know how it goes after you've performed the steps.
This does not fix it and I don't see how it would. This is not a problem with a third party application, this is a problem with a feature Microsoft implemented in the Fall Creator Update which seemingly has no way to be disabled.
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Anonymous
2017-12-23T09:41:29+00:00 Shouldn't user friendly mean, letting the user decide if he wants such a feature on or off?
Anyway in my case it's specially anoying, some programs like Visual Studio need to be run in admin mode, but after a shutdown, they are being restored under my login credentials.. duh.. Making my startup longer and effectively helping me nothing
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Greg Carmack 24,780 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator2017-11-08T16:21:32+00:00 Hi Tom. I'm Greg, a volunteer and 8 year WIndows MVP here to help you.
The best solutions to day that I find for this unwanted new features is here: https://winaero.com/blog/disable-apps-auto-reop...
I already have Shutdown and Restart shortcuts on my desktop so I was able to reference the linked tutorial in blog post to edit the commands to avoid this annoyance.
I hope this helps. Feel free to ask back any questions and let us know how it goes. I will keep working with you until it's resolved.
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Anonymous
2017-11-08T18:37:17+00:00 What you should do is close all your programs before shutting down. Its similar to a functionality on macOS users have been asking for years on Windows. Its considered handy especially when Windows 10 restarts after an update and you want to pick up from where you left off. If you don't like it, then you will have to go with Gregs work around or downgrade to an older version.