How to prevent programs from opening when system is unattended???

[daveiw100]

When the system is unattended, Programs such as Word, Excel, photos, File Explorer, Start Menu etc, intermittently open.

This has only started to occur fairly recently, so may possibly be associated with windows update????

I have tried in vain to disable the touch screen as I thought this may be revelevant. (Still unable to disable touch screen - so unable to determine if this is associated with programs intermittently mysteriously opening)

How do I stop this?

Would there be any event logs I could analyse to determine the cause of this?

[BeemerBiker]

There is a possible fix due to a bug in office / windows

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/office-applications-opening-on-startup/fd573f...

It is possible to disable the touch screen.  On my system it is under "human interface devices"

[daveiw100]

Hi BeemerBiker

thanks for your response

i will try the bug fix as suggested and monitor the situation 

i have already disabled the touch screen in Device Manager HID compliant touch screen, but the touch screen is still active. I have already tried editing the register directory as suggested in other forum posts, but still unable to disable the touch screen 

[daveiw100]

I turned off the setting to “Use my sign-in info to automatically finish settings up my device after an update or restart” as per the article, but overnight, Word and Excel were opened when the system was unattended

any other ideas??

[BeemerBiker]

Press Windows key + R
Type: shell:startup
Hit Enter

Look if Word and Excel shortcuts are in that folder, select them then click Delete.

==also==

Possibly the apps never finished installing, updating, or the activation failed

Run the repair.  If the repair finds problems that cannot be fixed then run the "on line" repair to re-download office

Open Start > Settings > Apps > Apps & features
Scroll down to Microsoft Office
Select it
Click Change

Now, wait while the repair wizard starts up and pick the quick one.

I got all the above from Da Costa one of the MVP'ers who I trust.

You can also ask over there and reference the above link to show what you tried.  

[daveiw100]

Hi BeemerBiker,

Thanks again for you response

Word and Excel are not listed in shell-startup

I am confident that MS Office - Word, Excel, Ourtlook etc are correctly installed

Also, other programs/apps start when system is unattended, so the issue is not only MS Office related

For example, today the system was unattended with no progams open. After approx 3 hours, File Explorer was open on the desktop. Sometimes the Start menu is open, sometimes Photos is open etc

I have alreday posted the problem on Microsoft forum

[daveiw100]

Update:

I ran Troubleshooter - Power Manager which fixed a couple of issues, one of which was when computer goes to sleep. This was set to Never (my preference), but Troubleshooter changed it to 30 mins.  I then changed it back to Never

This, somehow has disabled the Touch Screen !!!!!

I will continue to monitor for any programs opening when unattended