Windows 10: Why is my Desktop Window Manager dwm using so much memory?

Why does this happen and how do I fix this?

:)

 

desktop window manager

Desktop Window Manager is not listed under services.msc. How can I get DWM back? Thank you.

 

disabling dwm access denied

I don't know if it is even possible to disable DWM and still have Windows working normally but I found a list of solutions that can solve problems related to DWM:

How to fix Desktop Window Manager notification issues in Windows 10

 

Finding username DWM-1 on the task manager

Hi mik07, Welcome to 10F! *Smile

Out of curiosity I looked at mine and also found a dwm-1 listed under user name:




The next thing I did was run this CMD: C:\Users\(your user name)>tasklist /v in a regular CMD prompt, the /v switch is for verbose, and I came up with:




So I started reading up on this dwm-1 and from what I can tell the desktop windows manager (dwm) has a lot of responsibilities when a computer is being used and it is a way for the dwm to differentiate between the services it provides. DWM.exe is the parent and DWM-1, 2, 3, and so on are the children.

In my case dwm-1 is running the notification window that slides out from the right side of the desktop. From this article:

It looks like as long as you see local or console in the session name your okay, but if you see remote logon via RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) you'd better check into that especially if you weren't expecting a remote log-on.