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

Anonymous
2023-01-01T17:15:47+00:00

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

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-05-23T08:43:05+00:00

    Cannot reproduce it on mine. I do have Teams, OneDrive, Outlook running and experience this occasional pop up every day.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-05-23T08:23:30+00:00

    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...

    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.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-05-23T04:04:33+00:00

    Don't know if it's worth chiming in.

    Windows 11 Pro 22H2 22621.1702

    Intel

    nVidia GeForce RTX 2070

    Upgraded from Windows 10 Pro

    Streaming this computer to laptop via Parsec on a daily basis

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

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-05-22T20:25:44+00:00

    Mine as well, probably started around the same time, very annoying. My system:

    Win11 Home

    10.0.22621 Build 22621

    Dell Inspiron 7700 AIO

    x64-based PC

    11th Gen Intel i7-1165G7 @2.8GHz, 2803 Mhz, 4 Cores 8 Logical Processors

    BIOS Dell 1.18.0, 03/09/23

    SMBIOS Version 3.3

    16 GB Physical RAM

    Total Virtual Memory 24.1 GB

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-05-17T14:33:49+00:00

    Every day for the past six months I've been dealing with this issue. Why has Microsoft gone AWOL? I've been using Windows for 30 years, but I'm sorry to say this is the first time I'm seriously looking into alternatives to Windows.

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