Explorer.exe randomly taking focus - Windows 11

Question

Firstly, I've been using my same PC for 3 years (minus a few upgrades, graphics card etc) on windows 10 and never ever had this issue.

Recently I had the pop up saying I'm eligible to upgrade to Windows 11 - Cool, why not.

So I've been using windows 11 for a couple of weeks now and I'm enjoying it... apart from one VERY annoying issue I'm having.

When playing a fullscreen application (or borderless window, it doesnt matter) It will randomly minimize itself to start bar, the same kind of action If I were to Alt-Tab out of it.

This isn't an issue with any one program, it can happen in any game I'm playing, or even just fullscreen applications I leave running, such as Heaven benchmark or other benchmarking programs.

Its not an accidental press of windows key or anything daft like that, It even happens when gaming with a PS5 controller, hands nowhere near the desk.

This can happen within a minute or 2 of playing a game, or sometimes go as long as 20 minutes without happening, but it WILL happen and will repeat itself periodically.

I figured somehow another window is taking focus out of my game and tabbing to it, but no other window or notification etc actually pops up, I'm just left staring at my desktop.

I managed to find a program online someone created which logs which windows are in focus in order, so using this program I was able to determine that when im gaming and this happens, the window taking focus is 'Explorer.exe'. which is suspiciously the same thing that is in focus if I just click on my background on my desktop from another program. Its essentially like my PC is just tabbing itself to desktop for no reason.

As mentioned above, ive not had this issue ever in 3 years with windows 10 and its only started happening when upgrading to windows 11 so clearly something new or different is causing this.

Things ive already tried... Disabling notifications, Turning on/off 'Game Mode'. Changing power plans. Disabling 'minimize when a second monitor is plugged in or removed.

None of these have solved this. At this point im thinking of just reverting back to windows 10 for now.

Answer 1

Keep in mind explorer.exe is more than just the file browser, it runs a big chunk of your GUI like the start menu, etc.

It's not really explorer.exe "on its own" stealing your focus, it's some other app that is triggering it. My son used to have this issue on his PC for a while (that's what led to me subbing to this issue) and it was only when he had Microsoft Teams app running. However, that seems to have been addressed by a Teams update at some point because it doesn't happen anymore.

I've been running W11 for a few months now on my gaming PC (finally bit the bullet on a new build), but I have yet to see this issue crop up on there despite having lots of background apps running all the time (various game launchers/stores/overlays like Xbox, Steam, Epic, Discord, MSI Afterburner, HWInfo, etc).

Point being, the culprit is going to be some other app that is the root trigger for explorer stealing your focus.

Answer 2

Don't know if this has already been mentioned (a lot of pages to look through).

I had this issue as well, and I have found out that it was my Razer Synapse software causing it. It happens when Synapse pops the sync question whether to keep local profile or cloud profile.

If I just open Synapse and answer this pop up question the issue doesn't happen anymore. At least not until Synapse want to ask this question again. I use Razer Synapse with the same login on both my work PC and gaming PC, so it happens from time to time.

I hope this helps some with this issue. :-)

Answer 3

Thanks for taking the time.
Yes, I get that something else is using all or part of explorer.exe, but my irritation is partly that it started on day one (This is a new build too) when I had nothing but Windows, Orifice 365 and Firefox.

I have a bog-standard mouse, a Logitech M185, and a K270 keyboard. Both were in use on my previous desktop. It just occurred to me that I got a free TP-Link Wifi dongle, which I left plugged in despite using Ethernet. I will drop that, and see.

Nope. Did that and it's still happening.

Just as an amusing aside, I just ran Device Manager and focus.exe went nuts with "OpenProcess had error 5" giving me, as far as I can tell, 10 messages per second. Don't do this if you are trying to save your traces.

Answer 4

I know it's simple stuff, but have you tried going into your notifications settings and playing with those? Especially things like auto-do not disturb and Priority Notifications? It may be worth trying shutting all Notifications off to see if it helps, then if it does slowly turning individual things back on to see if it could be an app inappropriately triggering a Notification or Priority Notification even though it doesn't actually pop anything up so you can't identify it.