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
    2023-11-20T15:45:52+00:00

    Not sure if I'd class it as an improvement but MS do seem to have got this bug working far more efficiently - Updated to the latest version of Win 11 - opened an app and within seconds Windows Explorer pops to the fore ... I suppose this gets it over and done with right at the start and then ... happily there were no more interruptions for the rest of the day.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-11-20T15:57:11+00:00

    Not sure if I'd class it as an improvement but MS do seem to have got this bug working far more efficiently - Updated to the latest version of Win 11 - opened an app and within seconds Windows Explorer pops to the fore ... I suppose this gets it over and done with right at the start and then ... happily there were no more interruptions for the rest of the day.

    Thanks, c-duncan, your update made me laugh! 😂

    Microsoft update: All bugs now happen when the user first logs in.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-11-25T07:05:02+00:00

    Windows 11 Educational Edition 23H2

    Ver 22635.2771 (Insider)

    Desktop image slideshow every 30 minutes

    4 monitors, 3 DP, 1 HDMI

    It occurred during image slideshow change over.

    Didn't happen the next time.

    Folder pops up, takes priority and you need to close it (if it was closed before it might still pop up). This happens during media playback/picture presentation that is from a SMB share, or locally saved.

    5950x

    x570

    4090

    64GB DDR4

    1TB WD 850x

    5 SMB mounted shares

    Happens on the HTPC too. Becoming very irritating. Unable to gather winver at the time of posting.

    Windows 11 Educational Edition 23H2

    Desktop image slideshow every 5 minutes

    1 monitor, 4k@60hz

    13600KF

    z790

    32GB DDR5

    1TB Kingston something or other

    5 SMB mounted shares.

    All SMB shares are mounted from a TrueNAS Scale server. No windows SMB sharing between machines is in place.

    Please fix.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-11-29T23:38:53+00:00

    Same here. but 3080TI. This stupid window pops up when GAMING ON XBOX GAMEPASS.. So this is ALL WINDOWS. FIX THIS TRASH

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-11-30T09:46:01+00:00

    Fix this!

    The issue persists for at least a year now in spite of numerous reports and feedback.

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