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.

0 comments

575 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2023-06-14T17:22:41+00:00

    I can confirm that this is still happening after the patch Tuesday updates as well. 6/13/2023 updates did not fix the issue.

    For fun, I asked Bing ChatBot about it, here is the response:

    I found a few articles that discuss the issue you are experiencing. According to one of the articles I found, Windows 11 KB5025239, a mandatory security patch, is causing issues for some users. The problems range from File Explorer (explorer.exe) crashes to icons disappearing from the desktop to performance issues and even SSD slowdown^1^.

    I couldn’t find any evidence of Microsoft admitting it is an issue or speaking to address the issue. However, there are some fixes that you can try. One of the users on the forum thread you shared suggested performing a clean boot on your device first. By performing a clean boot, this is a mode of disabling third-party services or software, which could help rule out the interference of these elements^2^.

    I hope this helps!

    Disclaimer, This is from Bing... Not me.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2023-06-10T16:22:46+00:00

    on my Win11 file explorer would pop up about 10 - 15 seconds after I would open anything in LibraOffice

    I did that procedure last night and this morning I had no issues. Granted, this is only day one, but it works. BTW - the 4th step did find some corrupted files and fixed them. Why Windows doesn't automatically scan for these (like when it does auto-defrag) is beyond me.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2023-06-10T09:28:31+00:00

    Did you have the same issue as us though? With Windows 11 Explorer popping up due to the group policy update thing?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Deleted

    This answer has been deleted due to a violation of our Code of Conduct. The answer was manually reported or identified through automated detection before action was taken. Please refer to our Code of Conduct for more information.

    Comments have been turned off. Learn more