Explorer.exe randomly taking focus - Windows 11

Anonymous
2023-02-08T00:52:23+00:00

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.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-09-26T18:10:59+00:00

    All of these things are already done, and I only have razor software at home.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-09-26T19:35:30+00:00

    This problem was finally fixed (at least on my computer) after installing KB5030310 released today.

    Not on mine. The problem is really easy to reproduce. Just open two file explorers on the same window and just wait, it will happen even after KB5030310!

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-09-26T19:51:51+00:00

    You are correct! The problem persists if there's more than one tab open in the same Explorer window.
    But before it happened even when there was only one tab. Now it only happens if there's more than one.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-09-26T19:59:43+00:00

    You are correct! The problem persists if there's more than one tab open in the same Explorer window.
    But before it happened even when there was only one tab. Now it only happens if there's more than one.

    Ah! I see. Can anyone concur?

    Because ever since I noticed that having two File Explorer opened caused the problem, I just rarely opened two or didn't have it open long enough to matter.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-09-28T02:33:20+00:00

    Funny enough, I had a perfectly good workaround going that the latest KB5030310 broke. Essentially, I was using ViveTool to disable Windows 11 tabbed file explorer feature, and return it to having just a single tab per window like Win 10 had :

    vivetool /disable /id:37634385
    vivetool /disable /id:36354489

    However, with the latest update, and while using dark theme, the top bar of file explorer windows is completely white, with white text, making it un-usable.

    So now, I either have to switch to Light theme, never user the top bar, or live with the focus stealing. Thanks Microsoft.

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