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
    2023-03-15T12:27:01+00:00

    Also no, I am a business administrator, so no unspupported random issue software that forces changes to Microsoft Standards.

    The only bad software, that can causes issues, is the security software, in my case Trellix aka McAfee.

    But as we see in this thread, many people are affected from that issue.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-03-15T16:58:42+00:00

    My issue is weird, the file explorer pops up at 11.39pm everytime it seems

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-03-15T17:14:56+00:00

    I use Stardock Fences (organizes icons onto the desktop). I also use Fences on a Windows 10 machine, but no Windows Explorer issues there. I'm presuming that the problem lies within Windows 11 itself.

    I can only imagine that the reports we're seeing in this thread represent a tiny minority of users experiencing this issue, i.e., not every Windows 11 user suffering from this issue posts here. Please fix this, Microsoft, sooner rather than later.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-03-15T17:27:51+00:00

    I use explorer patcher so that I can access speaker layouts from the taskbar

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-03-16T19:29:24+00:00

    I updated to win 11 a couple of weeks ago, and encounter the same situation of a background explorer window popping to the foreground while I'm working. This only started happening ever since my transition to win 11. I do have connected USB stick drive with directories open from that drive. My USB stick connects to the USB port of my computer monitor, and the monitor connects to a Dell laptop hub, which then connects to the Dell laptop. This might not be relevant, but just mentioning only. This hasn't occurred before on my laptop with the previous operating system win 10. I will later test to see if the explorer popups occur when USB stick explorer directories of USB drive and other USB drives are NOT open. For testing and trying to narrow things down.

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