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About a month ago Windows Explorer started the annoying habit of routinely moving its most recently opened window into the foreground. Is there a way to stop it from doing this?
For example, I'll open an Explorer window to open a file into another application, and a few minutes later, for no apparent reason, Windows Explorer will interrupt the application by popping its Explorer window into the foreground. The same thing will happen when watching a video: a minute or two into watching the video and the most recently opened Explorer window will move into the foreground interrupting the video.
The only way to stop this behavior is to close all Explorer windows while watching a video or working in another application. Annoying as heck. Any suggestions? Thanks.
Microsoft Windows 11 Home Version 10.0.22621 Build 22621
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.
Same issue for a couple of months now. A recently opened Explorer window that's in the background will randomly pop up into the foreground.
Win11 Pro 22H2 22621.963
Lenovo Legion 7-16ACHg6 - Type 82N6
AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 16GB
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D: WD Black 4TB SN850X
BIOS GKCN59WW
Hi @Diplocaulus - your issue sounds very similar to one I started having about a month ago. I was so frustrated about it that I added an entry to the Microsoft Feedback Hub - see here: https://aka.ms/AAj4p5k
As you rightly say, the behaviour interrupts. Given the scientific evidence that interruptions can cause significant loss of productivity, this is a highly frustrating issue. See https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1518/155723408X299852 for instance.
Hi Diplocaulus,
It looks like quite a few users are experiencing similar problems, but unfortunately I was unable to reproduce the problem on the test device.
If it is convenient, could you please record a video of the current popover problem and provide it to me?
Best regards,
Mitchell - | Microsoft community support expert from MSFT
Hi Mitchell,
It's not an issue that really requires a video demonstration. I'm working in another app when randomly, without warning, an already-opened Explorer window will pop to the foreground, disrupting the work I'm doing in the app. If I happen to be mouse-clicking when this happens, then the mouse-click will suddenly be applied to the Explorer window. Very disruptive.
I've been using Microsoft Windows since version 2, and it's been my experience that 99% of the time these sorts of issues are a fault within the operating system. Pardon my cynicism, but on a related issue I've been having ongoing problems with Microsoft Outlook for over a year that Microsoft support has repeated told me will be fixed "soon."
Hi Mitchell,
Thank you for your prompt reply. Unfortunately, I tried a clean boot some time ago regarding another Windows 11 issue and it messed up my system configuration to the point where my PC refused to start normally thereafter, requiring a lot of time and effort to fix. Like Windows 11's other weird bugs, I'll just learn to live with this issue until Microsoft issues a fix.
So far, it looks like we're all using Windows 11 build 22621, an NVMe drive and a GeForce graphics card. I'd probably rank those factors in that order of relevance.
We're all using different editions of Windows 11 - Home, Pro and Enterprise. If this was purely a 22621 issue, I'd expect there to be more people experiencing this annoying behaviour.
