Since 22H2, File Explorer windows sometimes spontaneously move to the front

Ranes88 · Jan 6, 2023

Small update...
I've since removed Armoury Crate, however this is still happening at the exact same time. So no more asus events however there are two logon events recorded at the same time - I had initially assumed these were connected to the asus event but now it seems not. There is nothing else that matches the timestamp in the application/system log or task scheduler.
While I can't seem to trace these logon events, they are almost identical to what is mentioned in this thhread:

How to tell which service or task caused a certain 4624 logon event?

I found a series of Windows logon events 4624 like this: An account was successfully logged on. Subject: Security ID: SYSTEM Account Name: mycomputername$ Account Domain: ...

superuser.com

SkyBeam · Jan 6, 2023

So back to square... what we know

Seems to happen quite randomly, no clear time/date pattern was observed yet, different users reporting different times of day
No event log seems to correlate to the event
Happening on release, not only on insider builds

Guesses/Busted-theories:

Related to task scheduler events: Unlikely as no corresponding event was found
Related to ASUS Armoury Crate: Busted, no relation could be proven
Related to changes Microsoft did when adding Tabs: At least for me I do have a recent build with tabs
Related to GPO updates: Some occurrences happened at the same time to GPO updates but gpupdate does not trigger the issue; moreover others have reported the same issue with non domain-joined clients (perhaps someone can confirm it also happened on Windows Home?)

OAT · Jan 6, 2023

After this Beta update, I just experienced the issue again.
Was using winget to update Powertoys, winget was installing Powertoys.
About half way thru the installation, the console windows pane vanished in the background
and explorer came up front. Was using neither mouse nor keyboard.
Again, no pattern. Disheartening.

SkyBeam · Jan 8, 2023

Microsoft seems to be working on a fix. But release date is yet unknown.

coking · Jan 8, 2023

I had the same happen just now (8 minutes ago) at 21:15 GMT+1

These are the only events I can find at that timestamp.

WebAuthn APIs

Learn how to use WebAuthn APIs to enable passwordless authentication for your sites and apps.

learn.microsoft.com

WebAuthN API - Win32 apps

The WebAuthn technology (webauthn.h) provides Win32 apps with APIs for communicating to Windows Hello and external security keys as part of WebAuthN and CTAP specifications.

learn.microsoft.com

"Advapi32. dll is a part of the advanced API services library. It provides access to advanced functionality that comes in addition to the kernel. It is responsible for things like the Windows registry, restarting and shutting down the system, starting/stopping and creating Windows services, and managing user accounts."

@ Keywords it says: Ngc, WebAuthN

NGC is related to the pincode you use to login with on the computer rather than a password.

Civilization · Jan 31, 2023

This happens to me too. I use this thing, shown in the image. I don't suppose you guys do too?

OAT · Jan 31, 2023

Welcome to the forum.
This 'thing' is ExplorerPatcher.
And no, this just happened without it, as I was using the terminal console.
I am using Dev insider, didn't seem to do it in Beta builds.

SkyBeam · Jan 31, 2023

As reported a few posts back this issue seems to have been acknowledged by Microsoft. We just don't have a fix yet.
Also I noticed my Explorer windows randomly jumping from the selected folder to desktop. I usually have something like 5-30 explorer windows open and recently also noticed that very often a vast majority of them seem to default to "This PC" or "Desktop" which is certainly a folder I would never leave it at as when I open a Explorer window I use it to navigate somewhere and not just leave it open at the default folder (Win+e).
So there is more mystery to Windows 11 Explorer bahavior. But most annoying of course when it jumps in front of a video or movie while watching.

Subscriber43 · Jan 31, 2023

OAT said:
Welcome to the forum.
This 'thing' is ExplorerPatcher.
And no, this just happened without it, as I was using the terminal console.
I am using Dev insider, didn't seem to do it in Beta builds.

Oh, believe me, it happens in Beta builds too.
A lot.

OAT · Jan 31, 2023

Subscriber43 said:
Oh, believe me, it happens in Beta builds too.
A lot.

Great, it's accross builds and no fix in sight.

SkyBeam · Jan 31, 2023

OAT said:
Great, it's accross builds and no fix in sight.

There are still a couple of options.
First you might pretty easily upgrade to Windows 10 to get rid of this problem.
Or you might also replace your shell (less practical prbably)...

This reminds me of an old joke when a user complained a program not to be working... "The product packaging said minimum requirement to be Windows 11 or better. So I went ahead an installed Linux."

OAT · Jan 31, 2023

SkyBeam said:
This reminds me of an old joke when a user complained a program not to be working... "The product packaging said minimum requirement to be Windows 11 or better. So I went ahead an installed Linux."

I use Linux, I have installed many distros going back to Red Hat in the early 90s.
However the fragmentation of their implementation has made me doubt its future (as far as desktops are concerned)
Under Linux many devices and device features are still poorly supported or not supported at all. Where is the implementation of PnP?
The lack of standardization, fragmentation, unwarranted & excessive variety, as well as no common direction or vision among different distros.
The lack of cooperation between open source developers, and internal wars: There's no central body to organize the development of different parts of the open source stack which often leads to a situation where one project introduces changes which break other projects.
A lot of rapid changes: Most Linux distros have very short upgrade/release cycles (as short as six months in some cases, or e.g. Arch which is a rolling distro, or Fedora which gets updated every six months)
Not that many native games (mostly Indies) and few native AAA games (Valve's efforts and collaboration with games developers have resulted in many recent games being released for Linux, however every year thousands of titles are still released for Windows exclusively.
No polish, no consistency and no HIG adherence (even KDE developers admit it).

You get the point. I'll keep my Windows as my go-to system and deal with its quirks.

SkyBeam · Jan 31, 2023

OAT said:
You get the point. I'll keep my Windows as my go-to system and deal with its quirks.

Snipped all the Linux/Windows discussion as this is off topic and it wasn't my intention to start any comparison or religious discussion. So please don't start such a discussion here.
It's totally fine to keep either system. And yes you need to deal with its quirks as soon as you have chosen one and either side will have some., So sticking to Windows currently there seems to be simply no solution for this one quirk other than moving to another version of Windows or potentially an older build. Perhaps even the February update which is just around the corner will do something about.

OAT · Jan 31, 2023

SkyBeam said:
So please don't start such a discussion here.

Please do not tell me what to do. If MODS need to move this discussion , they will.
None of your concern.
BTW, you are now ignored.

barreleye · Feb 2, 2023

OK, this was interesting as I've never been actively typing when it occurred. Just now, I was typing a tweet into Firefox, and an Explorer window spontaneously jumped to the front. That's nothing new, but as I was typing, I noticed that it didn't steal focus, and I continued typing into Firefox. So people, it could be worse. lol

Ralph56 · Mar 25, 2023

Hey guys, it has been about a month now with no update on the status of this problem of the file explorer jumping to the front of all the opened windows, so I thought I would just share with you my simple Fix.

If you are like me, then you probably have your file explorer pinned to the taskbar and you use it from there. So, all I did was unpin it from the task bar. I then opened the file explorer using "My PC" or "This PC" from the desktop or from any other place other than the taskbar. I then opened other windows, browsers, etc., and waited to see if the explorer jumped to the front. It didn't!!!

I then just pinned to the taskbar that file explorer that I just opened previously using the "My PC" or "This PC" and I haven't had the problem ever since. It seems by unpinning the explorer from the taskbar and then replacing and pinning a new explorer, somehow resets the behavior of the explorer. Idk....Lol...

Anyway, let me know if this works for anyone.

KrazyLurt · Mar 25, 2023

I'll testing this now, fingers crossed.

Suchti_On_Tour · Mar 27, 2023

Ralph56 said:
Hey guys, it has been about a month now with no update on the status of this problem of the file explorer jumping to the front of all the opened windows, so I thought I would just share with you my simple Fix.

If you are like me, then you probably have your file explorer pinned to the taskbar and you use it from there. So, all I did was unpin it from the task bar. I then opened the file explorer using "My PC" or "This PC" from the desktop or from any other place other than the taskbar. I then opened other windows, browsers, etc., and waited to see if the explorer jumped to the front. It didn't!!!

I then just pinned to the taskbar that file explorer that I just opened previously using the "My PC" or "This PC" and I haven't had the problem ever since. It seems by unpinning the explorer from the taskbar and then replacing and pinning a new explorer, somehow resets the behavior of the explorer. Idk....Lol...

Anyway, let me know if this works for anyone.

Hey, i can Confirm at the moment the trick was working on my System, i didnt get the Explorer Pop up since 2 Days now
I'll give you a Update if Something Happend or not in the next Days
Thank You

barreleye · Mar 27, 2023

Ralph56 said:
I then just pinned to the taskbar that file explorer that I just opened previously using the "My PC" or "This PC" and I haven't had the problem ever since. It seems by unpinning the explorer from the taskbar and then replacing and pinning a new explorer, somehow resets the behavior of the explorer. Idk....Lol...

Anyway, let me know if this works for anyone.

I appreciate the effort, but it didn't work for me. I'm running the latest of everything FWIW.

KrazyLurt · Mar 28, 2023

I haven't either had any pop-up since, but it could just be that I had no windows in front at that time or using file explorer. Time will tell.

Since 22H2, File Explorer windows sometimes spontaneously move to the front

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