Fixing Annoying Word/Excel Windows Problem

[berkeman]

This has bugged me for a while, so I finally was trying to figure out how to disable this "feature" today. But Microsoft Help and Google haven't led to any fixes yet.

If I have a Word file open and minimize it, and then open another Word file, the first file window also pops back up and ends up on-screen behind the new Word file window. The same thing happens with Excel files.

Does anybody know how to keep that from happening? It's really annoying; I have the first file window minimized for a reason -- I'm not working on that file currently but will get back to it soon enough that I don't want to close out that window.

Thanks for any tips.

 

[pbuk]

Versions?

 

[berkeman]

Versions?

Oh, good point. It's happening to me in Win10, but I don't remember if this happened with any older versions. It seems like it's been an annoyance for several years now...

 

[Tom.G]

Overall, it sounds like they are sharing some variables of DLLs that they shouldn't be. I have a browser that behaves in a somewhat similar fashion.

Just for proof-of-concept:
DON'T TRY THE FOLLOWING WITH ANYTHING IMPORTANT.
A clumsy work-around would be; with both instances open, see if one can be minimized while working on the other instance; check if it works both ways, and also for Saving and Opening without corruption.

Cheers,
Tom