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
    2023-01-15T15:46:11+00:00

    I'm having the same problem whenever I have a File Explorer window open in the background.

    From my observation, this seems to happen every time OneDrive starts performing a sync.

    I'm not sure if you have OneDrive installed, but if you do, see if it shows OneDrive syncing whenever FE pops into your foreground.

    I'm also not sure how to fix it, but if we can help isolate the cause then maybe MS will get around to fixing it faster. It's immensely annoying.

    **edit**

    Edition: Windows 11 Enterprise [[ 10.0.22621 ]]

    OS Build: 22621.1105

    System Model: Vostro 7620

    Processor: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700H, 2300Mhz, 14 Core(s), 20 Logical Processor(s)

    BIOS Version: 1.8.0

    Disk Drive: [[ NVMe ]] PC SN740 NVMe WD 1TB

    Graphics Card: [[ NVIDIA ]] GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU

    Looks like I'm 3/3 on the common factors... 🫤

    I know what you mean, but turning off OneDrive sync does not fix the issue for me. Again, in my case the Explorer window that pops to the foreground is typically the one most-recently opened.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-01-15T15:34:11+00:00

    I am having the same problem with my Windows 11 Home 22H2, also since the latest Windows software update in December 2022. Would appreciate some help.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-01-15T14:07:15+00:00

    I have had the same problem since December, since a couple of Windows 11 updates (I have Windows 11 Home, version 22H2), not sure which one triggered it, but I can't seem to make it stop. Extremely disruptive and annoying.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-01-14T07:11:53+00:00

    I'm having the same problem whenever I have a File Explorer window open in the background.

    From my observation, this seems to happen every time OneDrive starts performing a sync.

    I'm not sure if you have OneDrive installed, but if you do, see if it shows OneDrive syncing whenever FE pops into your foreground.

    I'm also not sure how to fix it, but if we can help isolate the cause then maybe MS will get around to fixing it faster. It's immensely annoying.

    **edit**

    Edition: Windows 11 Enterprise [[ 10.0.22621 ]]

    OS Build: 22621.1105

    System Model: Vostro 7620

    Processor: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700H, 2300Mhz, 14 Core(s), 20 Logical Processor(s)

    BIOS Version: 1.8.0

    Disk Drive: [[ NVMe ]] PC SN740 NVMe WD 1TB

    Graphics Card: [[ NVIDIA ]] GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU

    Looks like I'm 3/3 on the common factors... 🫤

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    10+ people found this answer helpful.
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  5. Anonymous
    2023-01-12T01:50:46+00:00

    Hi MuNull,

    Yes, I admit that asking users for video information seems reckless. But I haven't seen this problem on multiple Windows 11 22H2 devices, so I don't think it's a Windows 11 glitch. If possible, I also hope you can try to perform a clean boot on the device, which will help troubleshoot this problem. Or download the image file to fix the system.

    Best regards,

    Mitchell - | Microsoft community support expert from MSFT

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