Windows 11--most recently opened Explorer window keeps popping up into the foreground

As others have noted...

I am able to reproduce always, with gpupdate /force with the following caveats:

• The same instance of Explorer window will only steal foreground/focus once, and not again, during subsequent gpupdate /force's
• If the Explorer window is ever minimized previously, it does not seem to steal foreground/focus during gpupdate /force

@Diplocaulus, try:

1. Completely closing "File Explorer"
2. Open "File Explorer"
3. *Background "*File Explorer," but do not minimize, by selecting any other window (including your command window)
4. Run the command "gpupdate /force"

You may also notice your desktop icons refreshing when this happens as well.

You can force the process in a CMD with "gpupdate /force".
GPO will be triggered any 90 minutes.

So, if the GPO is the issue, this should also happen if you force them.

I can not confirm, that this issue is in touch with the GPO sync, since I do have this once a day or less, while others do have this more often, but none of them once with any GPO run...

Okay, this issue is now reproducible via the following steps:

1. EDIT: First, ensure there are no Explorer windows open.
2. Open Explorer - leave it open and do not minimise it.
3. Open a CMD/Terminal window.
4. Type the following and press return: gpupdate /force

Expected: Group Policy updates and nothing else happens.

Actual: The terminal read-out shows "Updating policy..." and then the Explorer window pops over the top of the terminal window.

As such, I agree this seems to relate to GP updates.

Well spotted!

The only thing I could mention, that is similar to anybody in my env is, that anybody has Trellix (McAfee) products installed and that anybody runs Microsoft Teams.

I am running MS Teams at work, but not on my Home PC (seen the issue on both). No McAfee.

When the issue occurs, it's all my Explorer windows at once, not just one.

That's what happens with mine too. Earlier, most of us just report the window pop-up. That's because at first, we might just have 1 window open to begin with. But after a while, we will certainly see that however many explorer windows are in the background, they can/will all pop-up at once to the foreground.

After what i have seen, it has something to do with group policies. I have checked event viewer multiple times the moment the popup happens and i have always seen something with group policies be the newest events in event viewer. The worst part is, a computer checks for policy updates multiple times a day, even when the computer is not even connected to an AD server!

It's especially fun when you look up and you've typed a password God knows where...

The same Nowhere etherspace where our comments posted here are going... No one is ever going to fix this problem and no one at microsoft cares.