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

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-12-08T14:53:35+00:00

    Same exact issue... I'm an electrical engineer working in AutoCad constantly - fullscreen and this will happen when im drawing precision lines, extremely frustrating...

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-12-06T18:03:24+00:00

    The simple answer to this is downgrade to Windows 10. You won't get the annoying popup. You will get a much better start menu... Click start... hey there's all my apps and the ones I pinned. And I can right click the ones apps and pinned one to see jump lists or on Windows 11 I have to Click start... only see pinned and no jump lists on pinned. now click apps button to open new window so you can see apps... Oh, you are an admin and need your AD tools... Guess what you have to find windows tool and click to open another window instead of scroll down click and select. I am sorry did we just go back to vista or windows 3.1 opening windows to get to windows to find an app. And the stupid auto-grouping that has no option to turn off. And every second update Microsoft do everything they can to break third party tools to stop the groupings. When I split things on different screens they are 90% not related!!! Stop <removed> grouping them! And while we are at it... We pay large for pro applications and OS. Why do you insist on finding ways to put xbox and store apps back on the damn computers with every release and are now putting ads in OneDrive. I don't pay to have ads or users to click on things to make work infrastructure hard. You have a home edition, leave all your **** there and maybe you will sell more pro to the world that is sick of it. And how to top it all off... A broken explorer that takes any minimized or background windows explorer window and keep popping it up to the foreground. Let me guess.... planning to put ads there too so this is a test. Yes even your developers say it is coming... Ads in file explorer.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-12-05T14:37:07+00:00

    I also installed KB5032288.

    After about five back-to-back "gpupdate /force" tests, I cannot reproduce the issue.

    This does currently appear to be fixed!

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-12-01T00:02:39+00:00

    This problem is still happening Microsoft and to be honest it's frustrating. To be playing a game or app and have Windows 11 go nope sorry going to interrupt what u were doing to bring up the File explorer cause reasons. I can't believe in a year's time you can't nail down what's causing the Windows explorer to pop up in the foreground. I should've stayed on Windows 10 man.....

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-11-17T13:01:35+00:00

    Release Preview is an Insider channel, for stuff that is very close to public release. It's very stable, and accessible in Settings > Windows Update > Windows Insider Program.

    However, I'd recommend just a bit more patience. If something is in the Release Preview channel, it will be released to the public in either a Patch Tuesday (2nd Tuesday of the month), or a Preview Update (4th Tuesday of the month). You can find the Preview Updates in Windows Update > Advanced Options > Optional Updates, and it might require the option "Get the latest updates as soon as they're available", not sure.

    All that being said, it sounds like:

    11/28 might be the day that the Preview Update is available.

    12/12 might be the day that the Release Update is available.

    I'm expecting the behavior to change from "File Explorer steals focus" to "File Explorer shows for 1 frame but does not steal focus", which is what the Dev channel has had for a long time now. Not perfect, but much much better.

    Feel free to hop into Release Preview channel right now, if you want. You generally pick up fixes a little bit earlier than the Release channel, while staying very stable.

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