alt Hacker NewsWindows has no such option, and regularly steals focus, particularly Visual Studio/Debug tools/applications loading. It had an option for a short period with the original TweakUI, but Microsoft removed support for it even in the registry.
No OS should steal focus, Windows absolutely is guilty of it.
Replies
I've found that the login dialog in Win 11 no longer consistently takes focus on the password field. Really annoying to login blind and find your typing was rejected because it doesn't do the sensible thing any more.
Windows itself isn't guilty of this in my experience (lifetime of use until Linux switch last year), but other apps like shitty Akamai. Some years ago a coworker wrote this blog post and a simple tool to find out which programs are doing it: https://forwardscattering.org/post/30
Many Linux display managers let you chose what to do, when a window requests focus. For me on Sway, it just turns the border red.
I chose what happens after. Can recommend. I wasn't even aware of my privilege.