Windows 11--most recently opened Explorer window keeps popping up into the foreground

once again today, no issues - it no longer pops up .. this is true on my older Win12 machine as well

(I did nothing to change this from last week when it was an issue, and there has not been any Windows update since then either ... beats me)

You're one of the lucky ones. Still happening on my work laptop - networked. I do have some level of admin privileges on the laptop - but not full privileges. But I was thinking that I better not tinker with disabling any services etc - just in case, because there's no telling whether it is going to create issues in other areas --- issues for the network admins that is.

Here's a question. Is there any way to safely suppress the gpupdate function that's apparently causing this until MS fixes the problem? I so rarely make changes to the group policies that I think I could live if it's not forcing updates multiple times per day.

The "Group Policy Client" service seems like a juicy suspect. I'm too chicken to try it myself.

Yes, there is. You can do this on your own computers, but please do not do it on your work laptop since this will make your computers non compliant with the group policy servers after a while, your laptop might loose AD access, that means you will not be able to login again before IT fixes the issue.

In the group policy editor set the policy Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\System\Group Policy\Turn off background refresh of Group Policy to disabled.

Alternatively, you can do the registry approach.
Location: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

Key: DisableBkGndGroupPolicy

Setting: DWORD set to 1

once again today, no issues - it no longer pops up .. this is true on my older Win12 machine as well

(I did nothing to change this from last week when it was an issue, and there has not been any Windows update since then either ... beats me)

You're one of the lucky ones. Still happening on my work laptop - networked. I do have some level of admin privileges on the laptop - but not full privileges. But I was thinking that I better not tinker with disabling any services etc - just in case, because there's no telling whether it is going to create issues in other areas --- issues for the network admins that is.

As an admin my self, I do not want any users to disable any services they do not know just to fix a slight issue. I rather want people to come to me to solve the issue before doing anything on they're computers and break something by accident, which i have done my self on my own test and private computers multiple times, so i know what to do and what to not do (most of the time).

The only fix I have found so far, is to disable group policy updates thru gpedit or registry, which is not recommended to do on a AD joined computer, but can safely be done on a home computers since it is most likely not AD joined.

... just to fix a slight issue...

Slight issue? There have been people here who have reported this issue has caused interruptions during live presentations. This issue has lost countless hours of productivity since October 2022 through breaking flow, and is a serious frustration for those affected.

Whilst I appreciate the concern in your message about users making admin changes to their systems without fully understanding the repercussions, I take issue with your minimisation of the issue at hand.

That people are driven to blindly make these administrative changes at all - that they would risk the wrath of their employer or risk damage to their home PC to solve this through tinkering in the registry - is testament to the frustration felt by those users.

I used a bit of wrong wording here... with slight issue i was referring to other smaller problems, not this one exactly since i have been plagued with this for a long time too. I have a bad habit of typing whatever i have in my thoughts without ever proof reading.

Whenever I am tinkering with registry and some stuff that might break a computer, i usually use an VM. Sadly this can't be said for most people since they wont even know what VM means in the computer world.