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
    2023-09-15T23:27:01+00:00

    FIX THIS PROBLEM ALREADY, MICROSOFT

    It's not just File Explorer doing it. I've noticed that Outlook has also started to randomly pop into the foreground just like File Explorer is.

    I also tried the suggestion of disabling gpupdate from running at continuous intervals in the registry, but File Explorer still pops into the foreground anyway.

    This is a completely unacceptable bug, and I'm long-past tired of typing and randomly opening programs or deleting files (or emails now) because a background window I was not interacting with suddenly steals focus, and now this problem is affecting Outlook windows, and I suspect there are other programs as well.

    FIX THIS PROBLEM ALREADY, MICROSOFT

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-01-23T08:48:47+00:00

    Hi @neoTR0N, thanks for the update. I think it's safe to assume the clean build from ISO is not going to solve this for anyone else either.

    I have observed this issue on my work laptop, my home PC and a friend's laptop, all running Windows 11 22H2. The repro steps seem to be:

    1. Open Windows Explorer
    2. Open some other app (anything - could be a browser)
    3. ... do stuff in the other app for a period of time...

    Expected: The Explorer window remains in the background until the user brings it into the foreground.

    Actual: The Explorer window brings itself, or is otherwise brought, into the foreground at some random point.

    Back to you, Microsoft.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-01-15T15:46:11+00:00

    I'm having the same problem whenever I have a File Explorer window open in the background.

    From my observation, this seems to happen every time OneDrive starts performing a sync.

    I'm not sure if you have OneDrive installed, but if you do, see if it shows OneDrive syncing whenever FE pops into your foreground.

    I'm also not sure how to fix it, but if we can help isolate the cause then maybe MS will get around to fixing it faster. It's immensely annoying.

    **edit**

    Edition: Windows 11 Enterprise [[ 10.0.22621 ]]

    OS Build: 22621.1105

    System Model: Vostro 7620

    Processor: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700H, 2300Mhz, 14 Core(s), 20 Logical Processor(s)

    BIOS Version: 1.8.0

    Disk Drive: [[ NVMe ]] PC SN740 NVMe WD 1TB

    Graphics Card: [[ NVIDIA ]] GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU

    Looks like I'm 3/3 on the common factors... 🫤

    I know what you mean, but turning off OneDrive sync does not fix the issue for me. Again, in my case the Explorer window that pops to the foreground is typically the one most-recently opened.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-01-17T10:29:25+00:00

    I have the same issue. Different system specs as others have stated, but the problem started with update 22621.1105 in October. Every time I watch a video, the windows explorer will pop up and I have to minimize it and maximize the video again. This is clearly an issue with that update. Please fix this. It's really annoying.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-01-15T16:18:20+00:00

    My Onedrive was turned off long before this problem began, so I don't think it is related.

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