File explorer opens at startup

Not a major issue but a minor annoyance. At startup file explorer opens. I only been using 11 for a few days now but haven't found a way to stop it from opening.
Bill

Bill, there are two settings related to this behavior. For the life of me I can only seem to find one right now, so try this, but do tell me if this does not resolve the issue. In the meantime, I'll try to locate the other setting and post back when I find it.

Please note that I am running 22H2 so it's possible my screen may look different from yours.

Try going into Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options, then turn off "Automatically save my restartable apps and restart them when I sign back in".

LOL, brain cramp. It just dawned on me why I could not find that other setting. It's actually a setting specific to File Explorer.

Open File Explorer and bring up the options. Look for the option called "Restore previous folder windows at logon" and uncheck it. That should do the trick!

My option list is different from yours

I unchecked the bottom two. Maybe ?????

Bill, take a look at your screenshot. It' a little bit subtle, but at the very top, you need to click on the "View" tab. I know that it's a little hard to tell that these are tabs.

Found it but the restore was already unchecked.

Hmm, odd. Did you also disable the setting I pointed out in my first post?

Bill, if that still does not work, please do this:

1) Press ALT + CTRL + DEL
2) Select Task Manager
3) Go to Startup apps

Is File Explorer listed as an app that should be automatically started?

No, its on the task startup list.

Billpa48 said:

No, its on the task startup list.

Click to expand...

So, it IS on the startup list? Sorry, having a difficult time understanding because you say "No" then say that it is on the startup list. If it is, remove it.

Another question:

If you close File Explorer before you restart your computer, does it still open when you log back on after a restart?

hsehestedt said:

Another question:

If you close File Explorer before you restart your computer, does it still open when you log back on after a restart?

Click to expand...

Yes,every time. As I said prior its more of an annoyance than a problem, I'm only trying to find out why.

Okay, let's pull out the big gun

There is a Microsoft Sysinternals utility that shows everything set to start automatically, and more important to us, what is causing it to start.

1) Go to the link below and download the autoruns utility.
2) Extract the contents to a folder. It doesn't matter where. I would suggest creating your own folder somewhere. For example, I simply created an "autoruns" folder on my desktop.
3) Go into that folder and run autoruns64.exe

Somewhere in that list we should find File Explorer and what is starting it. If this is still not showing it, then it must be something aside from Windows starting File Explorer, such as some other app opening it for some reason.

It must be something else. I couldn't find a reference for File Explorer in the big gun.
With that I'm going to bed. I really really need all the beauty rest I can get!

Yeah, me too .

I'll ponder this further and we can resume our discussion in the morning, or whenever is good for you.

Billpa48 said:

Not a major issue but a minor annoyance. At startup file explorer opens. I only been using 11 for a few days now but haven't found a way to stop it from opening.
Bill

Click to expand...

I had the same issue with an SD card installed. Windows sees it as external device and opens File Explorer window on startup. Stopped this by going to Autorun options and told it to "Do Nothing". Fixed it for me.

I had a similar problem on Windows 10: Windows Explorer would open on startup, but as a minimized icon in the system tray.

Using Sysinternals "Autoruns" utility I disabled all "OneDrive" entries since I have no use for that; also a few "file not found" autoruns. Now Windows Explorer no longer starts on boot.