The Reopened Workspace
Windows 11 includes a continuity feature designed to help you pick up exactly where you left off. If you have several specific applications open—like a web browser, a text editor, and a music player—and you decide to shut down or restart your computer without manually closing them first, Windows will remember their state. When you next log in, Windows 11 will automatically launch all of those “restartable apps” and attempt to restore their previous windows. While some users love this, others find it significantly slows down their boot times and clutters their fresh desktop with windows from a previous working session.
Disabling Restartable Apps
To ensure you always start with a clean slate and stop Windows 11 from automatically resuming your previously opened apps upon login, you must adjust your account sign-in options.
Press the Windows key + I to open the Settings application. In the left-hand navigation pane, click on Accounts. In the main window, scroll down to the “Account settings” section and click on Sign-in options. Scroll down this new page until you find the section labeled “Additional settings.” Here, look for a toggle switch next to the text that reads Automatically save my restartable apps and restart them when I sign back in. By default, this is usually turned on. Click the toggle to switch it to the Off position. From now on, when you shut down or restart, Windows will completely close all applications and boot to an empty desktop, regardless of what was open previously.