One thing I’ve noticed in Windows 10 recently is that Outlook seems to auto-start, which it never did before. In fact, this caused an error on a new desktop PC that I’m setting up, as follows:

1. Outlook has an archive PST open, which is on a drive that is connected over iSCSI

2. On reboot, Outlook auto-started and threw an error because it could not find the drive

3. In the background, the iSCSI drive reconnected, which means Outlook could have found the drive if it had waited

All very annoying. Of course I looked for the reason why Outlook was autostarting. In Windows 10, you can control startup applications in Task Manager. But Outlook was not listed there. Nor could I find any setting or reason why it was auto-starting.

Eventually I tracked it down. It is not really Outlook auto-starting. It is a new feature in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update that automatically restarts applications that were running when Windows was last shutdown. Since Outlook is pretty much always running for me, the end result is that Outlook auto-starts, with the bad result above.

I presumed that this was a setting somewhere, but if it is, I cannot find it. This thread confirms the bad news (quote is from Jason, a Microsoft support engineer):

This is actually a change in the core functionality of Windows in this development cycle.

Old behavior:
– When you shut down your PC, all apps are closed

– After reboot/restart, you have to re-open any app you’d like to use

New behavior:

– When shutting down your PC, any open apps are “bookmarked” (for lack of a better word)

– After reboot/restart, these apps will re-open automatically

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.

Why?

The desire is to create a seamless experience wherein, if you have to reboot a PC, you can pick back up quickly from where you left off and resume being productive.  This has far-ranging impacts across the OS (in a good way).

Not everyone agrees that this “far-reaching impact” is a good thing. The biggest gripe is that there is no setting to disable this behaviour if it causes problems, as in my case. Various entries in the official Windows feedback hub have been quick to attract support.

Workarounds? There are various suggestions. One is to manually close all running applications before your restart. That is an effort. Another is to use a shortcut to shutdown or restart, instead of the Start menu option. If you run:

shutdown /f /s /t 0

you get a clean shutdown; or

shutdown /f /r /t 0

for a restart.

As for why this behaviour was introduced without any means of controlling it, that is a mystery.