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

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.

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-06-20T16:26:06+00:00

    Thank you for the update. Needless to say, suffering though this problem for another half year is unacceptable; what is Microsoft's problem?

    Meanwhile, this issue appears to be getting worse. I'm now experiencing situations where I'll be working in one File Explorer window when another will jump to the fore and take its place. Also, the explorer window will flash repeatedly.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-06-15T07:56:42+00:00

    I been testing one of the latest Windows Insider builds on "Canary Channel", which is flagged as version 23H2. This version does not have the explorer pop up issue when gpupdate is being ran

    23H2 is officially released sometime in October/November this year (2023).

    Thanks! That's better news than we've had so far. Just a few months to wait then. This sounds like progress to me.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-06-15T07:37:52+00:00

    I been testing one of the latest Windows Insider builds on "Canary Channel", which is flagged as version 23H2. This version does not have the explorer pop up issue when gpupdate is being ran by following this process:

    • Close all explorer windows
    • Open an explorer window
    • open CMD so its in front of the explorer window
    • run in CMD gpupdate /force

    Doing the above on this version keeps CMD at the front of the explorer window, unlike current builds of windows where the explorer window will pop to the front.

    So we can then assume Microsoft wont be fixing this issue with cumulative updates for 22H2 (as this issue is now 6 months+ old) and we instead have to wait until 23H2 is officially released sometime in October/November this year (2023).

    The only positive is that at least this "test build" does not have the issue.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-06-14T20:48:04+00:00

    I can not quickly find the posting I sent last week re: a solution to Win10 that was working for Win11 for me.. Well .... the problem is back today. ie, that is no fix for Win11

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-06-14T17:22:41+00:00

    I can confirm that this is still happening after the patch Tuesday updates as well. 6/13/2023 updates did not fix the issue.

    For fun, I asked Bing ChatBot about it, here is the response:

    I found a few articles that discuss the issue you are experiencing. According to one of the articles I found, Windows 11 KB5025239, a mandatory security patch, is causing issues for some users. The problems range from File Explorer (explorer.exe) crashes to icons disappearing from the desktop to performance issues and even SSD slowdown^1^.

    I couldn’t find any evidence of Microsoft admitting it is an issue or speaking to address the issue. However, there are some fixes that you can try. One of the users on the forum thread you shared suggested performing a clean boot on your device first. By performing a clean boot, this is a mode of disabling third-party services or software, which could help rule out the interference of these elements^2^.

    I hope this helps!

    Disclaimer, This is from Bing... Not me.

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