After Windows 10 Fall Creators Update recent used app will launch on startup

I just updated Windows 10 to Fall Creators Update and since then I have 'unwanted' behavior.

If I leave open Chrome or any application when shutting down the PC, next time I boot up the system Windows will open the same Chrome tab/page and application automatically. So it looks like there is an option somewhere to remember last open task and open then on startup?

Does anyone know where to find this option or where to disable this feature?

Solution 1:

New Answer (2020-10-22)

By now, there are dedicated settings allowing you to control this behavior.

Go to Settings > Account > Sign-in options and scroll down to the bottom. There will be two settings:

• "Automatically save my restartable apps when I sign out and restart them after I sign in." (new in Windows 10 2004)
• "Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up my device after an update or restart."

I recommend turning both off, despite only the first seemingly dealing with this feature. I still noticed some apps opening after a restart if I did not turn off both options.

The following, old answer workarounds this by using a script to shutdown:

Old Answer

Here's a silly workaround for the similarly silly new feature.

Some background first: Windows seems to shutdown as if %WINDIR%\system32\shutdown.exe was invoked with the /sg /hybrid /t 0 parameters. The magic is in the /sg parameter which tells it to "restart any registered applications" on the next boot. The "old" /s parameter still exists and shutdown can be invoked with it manually.

To quickly call shutdown.exe like that, create a shortcut either in your apps list (%PROGRAMDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs for all users, %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs for the current user), or somewhere else and then pin it to start.

The important shortcut properties are the following:

• Name: Shutdown
• Target: %WINDIR%\system32\shutdown.exe /s /hybrid /t 0
• Start in: %WINDIR%\system32

Optional:

• Name: Add a non-breakable space (Alt+Num255) in front of it to appear at the top of the All Apps list. You can try other fancy Unicode characters if you like.
• Run: Minimized to prevent the ugly command prompt from popping up shortly.
• Icon: Change to something nice (there's an XP-style shutdown icon available in the default shell32.dll, or some close / critical icons in imageres.dll).
• Comment: Leave a rant here about the dumb new feature.

It can look like this in the end:

If you want a shortcut doing the same for restarting, the old /r switch can be used which was replaced by the new /g switch.

Solution 2:

As mentioned in the comments, this is the intended behavior recently added to Windows. A thread on the Microsoft Windows community forum about the issue can be found here.

According to the thread there is currently no way to disable the "feature". The way to start without any apps reopening is (quote from a Microsoft Support Engineer):

If you want to start with no apps open (other than those set to auto-start via Task Manager/Start), you'll need to ensure all apps are closed before shutting down or restarting the PC.

However, according to this link, it should be possible to turn on and off.

To activate this feature, go to Settings > Accounts > Sign-in > (under Privacy) “Use my sign info to automatically finish setting up”.

You can try turning it off this option.