Desktop window manager high CPU usage is a stressful issue, and many computer users are in search of a good solution to it.

Relax and be cool as you will get the best answer here in this marvelous piece of content.

Desktop Window Manager High CPU Usage

If you assume that this service consumes a lot of CPU memory or RAM than you need to take some steps to solve this issue.

1. First, you need to wait for some time as it might be temporary.
2. Your hardware drivers need to be updated.
3. Scan your PC for viruses.
4. Update your OS.
5. You can update the system drivers by downloading the latest drivers from your manufacturer’s website.
6. Sometimes the OS and drivers are set for auto updates. The only thing you need to in this regard is to grant permission to update it.

Let’s have a look at brief explanation of DWM and its working.

What is the Desktop Window Manager?

Desktop Window Manager commonly referred to as the dwm.exe is a window manager that controls the many effects in windows.

• It changes the GUI with the help of hardware acceleration.
• You can use it in windows server 2008 too but there you will need to install some drivers first that are compatible with it.

Explanation

DWM is a compositing window manager that a program writes the data in its buffer in a final image.

You will see it behaving differently in a different OS. Its functionality also depends on the graphics drivers.

It can easily access the application’s graphics and combines the visual form of various applications.

These visuals usually include the transience. It performs reading in the GPU and frees the Central processing unit from rendering.

Media Integration Layer

DWM uses MIL (Media integration layer) which is an unmanaged compositor. It uses this compositor for representing the windows nodes in the form of the composition tree.

Full-screen Allocations

DWM doesn’t do the task of windows compositing in the full-screen applications like games and thus there you won’t face any performance degradation.

Hardware Requirements For DWM

• Pixel shader
• 32-bit per pixel support
• GPU with a WDDM(Windows display driver model)) support
• Direct3D

The memory of the DWM increases with the increase in the number of programs opened in the windows.

Picture of Windows Apps

The windows application don’t write their displays to your screen directly.

Each of them writes its picture on a specific place in memory which is then converted into a composite view coating the picture of all screen.

It is then sent to a screen to display the content to the users. Windows also add different effects like animation and trancey while layering the display.

Start Screen Experience in Windows 8

You will have to use the DWM all the time, and it cant be disabled in the Windows8. This is because of the implementation of the new start screen experience.

Due to DWM running all time, the windows 8 users most often experience the memory usage issue after doing a quick system reboot.

There is a massive list of troubleshooting in this regard, but you can start with the easiest one by preventing it from restating in Win8.

By doing this experiment, you will see the desktop turned into black color and the taskbar into a grey color. Then you can install the Windows Vista theme, and all your apps will work fine during this process.

Staring your windows by disabling DWM is not a good idea as the lock screen needs DWM.

Similarly, if you start your Windows 10 and disable the DWM, then the entire composition engine will break. This will negatively affect the traditional apps too.

Desktop Window Manager High CPU Windows 10

High CPU usage in windows 10 by DWM will result in decreasing the performance of your PC.

Some problematic applications might be a cause of this performance issue.

• You need to adjust it for better performance and scan your computer fro virus.
• The driver can also result in such an issue and the one to be blamed in this regard is the graphics card driver. So you will need to install it again and scan it.
• You can also try changing your wallpaper and theme to sort out the issues.

Better Performance

There are some more solutions for the performance issues caused by DWM.

1. Open the control panel.
2. Then type performance in the search box located in the top right.
3. Click on the option saying to adjust the performance of Windows.
4. From there select the option ‘adust for best performance.’
5. Click OK to save the settings.

Now you will witness an improvement in your windows performance.

Disable Screensaver

DWM also manages the screen saver, and many reports have been received that the screensaver causes high CPU usage too. So you need to disable it to improve some performance of your PC.

1. To disable it follow the steps below
2. Open the start menu and type in ‘lock screen settings.’ Then press enter
3. Then from the results that come, navigate to the lock screen settings of your computer.
4. Click ‘screensaver settings’ on the bottom.
5. Disable the screensaver from there.

Removing Applications

You can try uninstalling the useless applications as many of them interact with your desktop. Such applications need to be diagnosed as soon as possible to improve CPU performance.

Hardware Acceleration

Another solution that works in most cases is disabling the hardware accelerations for MS office products. Hardware acceleration refers to using the hardware of the computer rather than using software for them.

To do this follow these steps.

1. Open an MS office product.
2. Then click on the ‘options.’
3. Select the advanced settings
4. Then disable the hardware acceleration from there.

Change the App Mode

App modes are available in Microsoft. There are options for light and dark. The light one is best for less CPU usage. Therefore you should move to the light mode if you have enabled the dark mode.

1. Open the start menu.
2. Type settings and open the settings from there.
3. From the personalization select the colors.
4. Then choose the light mode from the options mentioned in front of you.

Desktop Window Manager High CPU Memory

DWM process consumes a significant part of memory in case multiple screens are opened. Furthermore, another reason for this issue is the default Visual effects settings.

1. Right click my computer and select properties.
2. Click on the setting button found under the performance section.
3. Now you will have a performance window popped up in front of you.
4. The first tab is of visual effects. From there, you can select the features of your choice.
5. The most recommended setting, in this case, is to choose custom and select ‘smooth edges of the font.’ This reduces memory usage to a greater extent.

Virus in DWM

DWM is an official component of windows and is virus free. It might happen that any other virus in your PC placed its malware or spyware in the DWM’s location, so you need to be careful in this regard.

To check if there is a virus n DWM follow the steps below.

Open the task manager and locate the Desktop Windows Manager.

Right click on it and open the file location.

If this file is found in the windows/system 32 folder, then be relieved as it is entirely virus-free.

How to Know if Desktop Window Manager Stopped Working?

DWM service consumes minimal resources and uses around 50MB RAM and not more than 2% CPU usage. This amount of usage is considered to be normal for the visual effects functionalities.

1. Open the Task Manager and locate the Desktop Window Manager
2. From there you can see the RAM and memory usage.
3. If it stopped working, then you can also get to know about it from there.

Final Words

Now you can tackle the desktop window manager high CPU usage issue quite easily. You need to get rid of this problem as it affects the performance of your PC.