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Firstly, I've been using my same PC for 3 years (minus a few upgrades, graphics card etc) on windows 10 and never ever had this issue.
Recently I had the pop up saying I'm eligible to upgrade to Windows 11 - Cool, why not.
So I've been using windows 11 for a couple of weeks now and I'm enjoying it... apart from one VERY annoying issue I'm having.
When playing a fullscreen application (or borderless window, it doesnt matter) It will randomly minimize itself to start bar, the same kind of action If I were to Alt-Tab out of it.
This isn't an issue with any one program, it can happen in any game I'm playing, or even just fullscreen applications I leave running, such as Heaven benchmark or other benchmarking programs.
Its not an accidental press of windows key or anything daft like that, It even happens when gaming with a PS5 controller, hands nowhere near the desk.
This can happen within a minute or 2 of playing a game, or sometimes go as long as 20 minutes without happening, but it WILL happen and will repeat itself periodically.
I figured somehow another window is taking focus out of my game and tabbing to it, but no other window or notification etc actually pops up, I'm just left staring at my desktop.
I managed to find a program online someone created which logs which windows are in focus in order, so using this program I was able to determine that when im gaming and this happens, the window taking focus is 'Explorer.exe'. which is suspiciously the same thing that is in focus if I just click on my background on my desktop from another program. Its essentially like my PC is just tabbing itself to desktop for no reason.
As mentioned above, ive not had this issue ever in 3 years with windows 10 and its only started happening when upgrading to windows 11 so clearly something new or different is causing this.
Things ive already tried... Disabling notifications, Turning on/off 'Game Mode'. Changing power plans. Disabling 'minimize when a second monitor is plugged in or removed.
None of these have solved this. At this point im thinking of just reverting back to windows 10 for now.
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.
I also got this issue it started with a freshly installed windows 11 on a newly built PC, It still happens even after I updated windows. Randomly the file explorer pops up changing screen focus. Usually once a day but often times more than once. It is very annoying when it happens because it steals focus. It doesn't open a new file explorer, only a random already opened file explorer window that I already have opened.
I am also facing this issue. I have tried all the troubleshooting steps suggested on this page. Kindly fix this issue on priority as it is deteriorating the Windows 11 experience.
So, Microsoft, 6 months have gone by now with this being a known issue, possibly 7 months, as I have seen reports of the issue going back as far as January 2023. As stated by commenters in this thread and numerous others all over the internet, many people have tried many things and nothing, absolutely NOTHING resolves the issue except to never leave file explorer windows open in the first place. That's a hard, impractical habit to form and remember 100% of the time. So my question is, why the heck hasn't this been fixed? I understand that issues like this can be difficult to reproduce and may have more than one cause, but how hard is it to add some sort of extra debugging logger to explorer to find and fix this garbage? SIX MONTHS is LONG ENOUGH to fix a FREAKY, INFURIATING, and PRIVACY SABOTAGING bug. I have literally seen clips of this bug happening on live streams, which is embarrassing at the very least, but has potential to be much worse, as it could easily EXPOSE PERSONAL INFORMATION. FIX THIS BUG NOW!!!
as stated in my OP ...
I DO NOT USE WALLPAPERS AT ALL (plain black background mono color)
Anyway doesnt matter because MS doesnt give a toss about this problems it seems.
This appears to have fixed it for me (Windows 11 Pro 22621.1778)
Not a fix for the bug but an effective workaround for this annoyance.
