One of Windows 10’s habits is to reopen your previously opened apps when you turn on your computer. If you don’t want your machine to do this, and you’d rather open your apps from scratch, you can disable the feature.

There are multiple ways to prevent Windows 10 from relaunching your open apps after a reboot. This guide takes a look at some of those methods.

What Does This Do to Your Apps?

Disabling the auto-launch of your apps doesn’t do anything to your apps; it just prevents your apps from being relaunched.

Any data you create and save within your apps is retained.

Also, you can enable the feature to reopen your apps anytime you want.

Stop Windows 10 From Relaunching Your Apps After a Reboot

A settings option in Windows 10 makes your apps reopen after a reboot. If you turn this option off, your apps won’t relaunch.

If that’s what you want to do, here’s how you disable the option in Settings.

  1. Open the Settings app on your PC.
  2. Click Accounts on the following screen.
  3. Select Sign-in options on the left.
  4. Scroll down to the Privacy section on the right.
  5. Turn the toggle for Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up my device and reopen my apps after an update or restart to the OFF position.
Turn off apps reopening from Settings

That’s it. Windows won’t reopen any of your apps when you reboot your computer.

Change the Way You Shut Down Your PC to Prevent Apps From Launching

The standard shutdown method that you use to turn your computer off actually doesn’t close your apps. This means, your apps remain open when you’re turning your computer off, and those open apps will relaunch on your next boot.

To prevent that from happening, you should turn your computer off in a way that all your apps are closed before the machine shuts down.

This is actually fairly easy to do, and here’s how you do it:

  1. From your desktop, press the Alt + F4 keys on your keyboard.
  2. The Shut Down Windows box opens.
  3. Select Shut down from the dropdown menu, and click OK.
Shut down Windows 10 closing all open apps

None of your apps will reopen on the next boot.

Use the Run Dialog Box to Prevent Windows 10 Apps From Opening

If you prefer to use the Run dialog box, you can use a command in this box to turn your computer off without it launching your open apps on the next boot.

This is a one-time thing and you’ll need to run this command each time you want to prevent your computer from automatically opening apps.

  1. Press Windows Key + R at the same time to open Run.
  2. Type the following command and press Enter.
            shutdown /s /t 0
        
  3. Your computer will shut down.
Shut down Windows 10 closing all apps using Run

Create and Use a Shortcut to Prevent Auto-Launch of Apps

To make the task easier, you can create a desktop shortcut that lets you prevent your apps from reopening with a double-click.

This shortcut basically uses the shutdown command, and you just need to launch this shortcut to execute the command on your PC.

Here’s how you make this shortcut:

  1. Right-click anywhere blank on your desktop and click New > Shortcut.
  2. On the resulting screen, type the following command and click Next at the bottom.
            shutdown /s /t 0
        
  3. Enter a name for your shortcut on the following screen, and click Finish.
  4. Double-click on the newly created shortcut to shutdown your computer.
Prevent auto-launch of apps using a shortcut on Windows 10

On the next boot, you’ll find your apps no longer automatically open.

Using Group Policy Editor to Disable the Launch of Apps on Your PC

The Group Policy Editor helps enable and disable various Windows functions. One of these functions controls the auto-launch of your apps, and you can turn this function off to prevent Windows 10’s behavior that you’re not liking.

Here’s how:

  1. Open the Run box by pressing Windows + R keys at the same time.
  2. Type gpedit in the box and hit Enter.
  3. When the Group Policy Editor opens, navigate to the following path.
            Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Logon Option
        
  4. Double-click the item that says Sign-in last interactive user automatically after a system-initiated restart.
  5. Select Disabled and then click Apply followed by OK in the bottom.

Disable Startup Programs

If your apps keep reopening no matter what you do, your apps might be on the startup programs list. Any app that is in this list is allowed to launch on the boot of your computer.

The good news is that this startup programs list is editable. You can remove the apps that you don’t want to open on the boot:

  1. Launch the Settings app on your PC.
  2. Click Apps on the following screen.
  3. Select Startup on the left.
  4. Find the apps that you want to prevent from reopening on the right.
  5. Turn the toggle for those apps to the OFF position.
Disable startup programs

Your selected apps won’t automatically launch on your next boot-up.

Prevent Windows From Reopening Your Folders

In addition to apps, Windows might open some of your folders in File Explorer when you boot your computer. If you don’t want this, you can turn this feature off in the File Explorer utility.

Related: The Best Windows File Explorer Tricks and Tweaks

Here’s how you do that:

  1. Open a File Explorer window.
  2. Click the View tab at the top.
  3. Click Options.
  4. Head to the tab that says View.
  5. Find the Restore previous folder windows at logon option in the list, and untick it.
  6. Click Apply followed by OK in the bottom.
Prevent Windows 10 from reopening folders

Many Ways to Prevent Automatic Launch of Apps on Windows 10

If you prefer to open your apps at your own times and convenience, you can disable Windows 10 from automatically reopening apps on your PC. The methods outlined above should help you achieve this.

You can prevent Windows 10 from automatically adding your folders to Quick Access in File Explorer as well, and you might want to do this if you want to keep Quick Access clean.