[How To] Disable “Did You Mean To Switch Apps” In Microsoft Edge

This registry workshop will show you how to disable "Did you mean to switch apps'' prompt in Microsoft Edge/Windows 10 while switching to File Explorer.

Kapil Arya
11x Microsoft MVP · Admin
2 min read
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Whenever you click any hyperlinks in Microsoft Edge that results in opening of another app (ex. File Explorer) on your system, you’ll see Did you mean to switch apps? prompt. This might be quite irritating for some of the users, while might be helpful for others. The users who feel it unnecessary may want to disable it, but there is no direct/manual option to do so.

In this article, I’m going to share you a working registry trick that let you disable the prompt in few steps. Generally, the message appears when Microsoft Edge tries to switch to apps like File/Windows Explorer. Here’s the screenshot of that prompt:

How To Disable 'Did You Mean To Switch Apps' In Microsoft Edge

Selecting No option hides the message and prevent switching apps. While if you select Yes, though app switched to File Explorer but you get this warning every time when Edge want to switch to another app. Here is how to disable the prompt permanently:

How To Disable “Did You Mean To Switch Apps” In Microsoft Edge

Registry Disclaimer: The further steps will involve registry manipulation. Making mistakes while manipulating registry could affect your system adversely. So be careful while editing registry entries and create a System Restore point first.

1. Press W8K + R and put regedit in Run dialog box to open Registry Editor (if you’re not familiar with Registry Editor, then click here). Click OK.

Windows 10 Registry Editor

2. In the Registry Editor window, navigate to following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ProtocolExecute

How To Disable 'Did You Mean To Switch Apps' In Microsoft Edge

3. Right click ProtocolExecute and select New > Key. Name the newly created sub-key as file. In the right pane of file sub-key, right click and select New > DWORD Value. Now name the newly created registry DWORD (REG_DWORD) as WarnOnOpen. Its Value should correspond to 0.

How To Disable 'Did You Mean To Switch Apps' In Microsoft Edge

Close Registry Editor and reboot the machine. After restart, the settings are in effect and you won’t get ‘Did you mean to switch apps‘ prompt.

That’s it!

Also read: How to disable app switching in Windows?

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Kapil Arya
11x Microsoft MVP · Admin

Kapil holds Microsoft MVP title in Windows IT Pro expertise, 11-times in a row (2014-2025). He is 8-times Windows Insider MVP as well, and author of 'Windows Group Policy Troubleshooting' book. In 2015, Microsoft India accomplished him as 'Windows 10 Champion'. Being passionate Windows blogger, he loves to help others on fixing their system issues. Kapil has worked with official Microsoft Community Engagement Team (CET) on several community projects. You can subscribe him for news/updates and fixes for Windows.

3 Comments
jeob

Don’t even have a protocol execute thingy in there

speiCee

Doesn’t Work 3/7/2017

Don LaVange

This doesn’t work. From reading on the web there seems to be an IE related checkbox, to never have this happen again. But in my case, it’s running something that isn’t in IE. For IE we use ActiveX to reach out and touch my software, but on edge we’re using our own technology. But we get this popup every time.

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