I have now done some testing with both solutions. I have had 2 separate machines running with an untouched explorer window behind another program and there has been not a single focus stealing thru the entire day, except for when I did setup the machines.
With the group policy method I did run gpupdate /force in CMD to make sure it was applied and a reboot after changing the registry key.
Keep in mind, this is not recommended to do in an work environment. These settings can be safely done on a computer which are not in an AD environment.
True. My systems are indeed set up for network/work environment, and the IT staff have their admin privileges - which we don't have -- as in full access to all features and functions of the operating system. And true that - even if we have the full access on our work environment - fully agree about not recommended approach for work environment computers.
I still find it odd in that Microsoft not only hasn't appeared to work out where the issue is, but also doesn't appear to have any representative or site providing comments or commentary that the issue has been acknowledged - and what they're actually doing at the moment to fix this significant/major issue. And a rough prediction time on just when it is going to be fixed. This is somewhat unacceptable - and unusual, right?