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
    2023-01-31T02:08:24+00:00

    Hi OC_WPC,

    Thank you for your continued attention to this issue. I notice that your feedback has been marked "We have got it", which indicates that Microsoft is concerned about this issue. Please be patient and wait for a fix.

    Best regards,

    Mitchell - | Microsoft community support expert from MSFT

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-01-29T01:23:01+00:00

    Hi neoTR0N,

    Thank you for your feedback. Although we cannot reproduce this issue, but other community members has been reporting this issue. I will document the problem and give feedback.

    In addition, you can also submit your questions through the Feedback Hub****(if convenient, please provide as much detail as possible, including pictures, videos, etc.).

    Please share the feedback link after submitting, I will submit your feedback to the relevant team for investigation through internal channels.

    Best regards,

    Mitchell - | Microsoft community support expert from MSFT

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-01-17T17:57:11+00:00

    Here's a repro I found - if anyone can try this, please let me know if it also works for you:

    This appears to happen only once after explorer has first started. I can reliably repro this by restarting explorer from task manager (explorer -> end task, then "Run new task" -> "explorer.exe"), opening a new explorer window and moving it to the background, and then using ctrl+c to copy text in any application. That forces the previously opened explorer window to be brought to the foreground with focus.

    I tried following these steps on Win11 22H2 22621.963 and was unable to reproduce.

    But the explorer window did pop into the foreground when i was watching a video on YouTube and got an email (an reply to this thread).

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-01-17T12:53:56+00:00

    The link is only for help to those with Microsoft 365 subscriptions. I purchased Windows 11. The number at Microsoft I'd called for help in August 2022 had announcement that help is only available online now.

    Would really appreciate it if Microsoft would correct the bug in 22H2 in one of their monthly updates.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-01-16T06:49:13+00:00

    I'll try that and will report back

    Edit: After following the advice and letting it sit idle for three hours (Brave Browser full screen in the foreground and Explorer in the background), it DIDN'T pop to the foreground. Now I'll work on my Computer and we'll see what happens 🤞

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