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
    2023-11-16T14:08:24+00:00

    I recently discussed this with some folks on another forum dedicated Microsoft tech support. I don't know what their relationship is with Microsoft, but they were aggressively defensive of Microsoft to the point of incivility, insisting that despite so many users reporting this issue here on the Microsoft Community Forum, this problem was yet just a "bug" affecting a tiny percentage of Windows 11 users; they themselves claimed to be unaware of it. As one respondent put it, they hadn't experienced the issue, nor had any of their "friends."

    When I suggested that this was more than a bug, that so far as I was concerned, Windows 11 was broken, they went full ad hominem using words like "ranting" and "idiot" to characterize me. Again, I do not know whether any of these people have any professional connection to Microsoft, but they sure as heck didn't want want to hear criticism of Microsoft or Windows 11.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-11-16T14:23:04+00:00

    Which forum, so I know to avoid it?

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-11-16T14:27:29+00:00

    To my knowledge, the problem happens only when the user leaves a File Explorer window open. So, I'd wager that it is possible that most people would not have a problem with this bug. But it's surely a bug, and I do hope we see the fix soon.

    The workaround is to make sure File Explorer is closed, when doing important work/gaming.

    Or you can pick up the proposed fix as an Insider in the Dev Channel, where "stealing focus" is fixed, but you still see 1 frame of File Explorer when the issue gets triggered.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-11-16T14:32:31+00:00

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-11-16T14:38:37+00:00

    To be fair, Windows 11 isn't completely broken. Windows Explorer does successfully allow you to navigate folders, choose files, etc. And you can run successfully run applications for work and play. It's just... when you try to do both at the same time... you trigger this unnecessary, silly, and incredibly irritating bug; which is very disappointing in a product named Windows that, somehow, doesn't seem able to handle windows as well as it used to!

    Thanks for continuing to push for proper recognition and fix!

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