dwm.exe keeps crashing because of windows update, causing SP8 screen to flicker nonstop

Question

Hello, my SP8 was stable on April 2024 updates. I then disabled updates by using battery saver + metered wifi connection. On October 2024, I decided to update again. There were Surface Driver, Intel, and KB updates. I'm using SP8 for business model i5, windows 10 pro.

Suddenly after updating, my screen starts to flicker. Looking at the event viewer, it's caused by dwm.exe constantly crashing and the event's time matches the screen flicker. Additionally, if I put the SP8 to sleep then wake it up, sometimes there will be a blank blue screen for ~20 seconds before I can enter my password. This too is caused by dwm.exe crashing.

This PC is "pure" in that there's almost no third-party apps installed. I've tried numerous things like /sfc scannow, restarting the PC completely, surface diagnostic toolkit, and getting the Nov-Dec updates. None of them works and dwm.exe just keeps crashing and making the touchscreen flicker and unresponsive. There's a faulty update from June-Oct 2024 that's causing this. I can only see KB updates on my update history, and I can't find the history for Intel and Surface updates. I've also tried contacting Microsoft and they said they are looking into the issue, but my emails are no longer replied and I need to file a new ticket.

To describe the crash, first the touchscreen becomes unresponsive. Then, the screen goes fully black. Then it'll refresh and turn on by itself. As the screen continuously goes from dark to bright, it's hurting my eyes. I noticed that certain apps like the default Media Player are exacerbating the issue, if I play music while working or browsing, the screen flicker happens a lot more.

I don't have any system restore points to go back to, and I'm worried that randomly uninstalling drivers and KB updates will worsen the issue. Other people have this issue too, and it seems the only solution is a complete factory reset + disabling all windows updates on the registry, but that's difficult to do as I'll need to backup lots of data, log in on websites, reinstall apps, etc. Is there a way to install an older dwm.exe or ntdll.dll version? Can Microsoft please fix this in the next update?

Answer 1

Hello Molly,

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

We have noticed that you have tried many methods to solve this problem. Obviously, the solutions you try are the majority of the suggestions we can offer our clients as community support. But perhaps you haven't tried manually installing drivers and firmware packages for the Surface Pro? Please allow me to share the download address here:

Download Surface Pro 8 Drivers and Firmware from Official Microsoft Download Center ****

After manual installation, restart your Surface and check to see if the problem can be alleviated.

From the information recorded in the event viewer, the crash did come from dmp.exe, but because you installed so many updates at the same time during this period, it is difficult to troubleshoot the problem, and I cannot recommend that you try to troubleshoot all the installed updates by uninstalling them.

However, one way to test whether this is due to a system failure, which I suspect you may not have tried, is to create a new local administrator account on the device, and then use this account to log in to test:

Manage user accounts in Windows - Microsoft Support ****

The new local administrator account has a separate account profile, and if you still see the same problem on your desktop after logging in with this account, the problem is probably from the system.

But if the problem does not occur again, then perhaps you can try to fix the problem by replacing the configuration file with the following procedure.

Troubleshoot problems signing in to Windows - Microsoft Support

The sfc command is indeed a regular fix, but it is usually used to fix minor issues. Considering that you are still looking for a solution that does not restore your device to factory Settings as much as possible, I recommend that you try to restore with the ISO image of Windows 10, which has less impact on the data in the device, but just in case, please back up your important data in advance.

The following website is the tool download address (please use a computer device to visit, click Download now, do not click update now) : https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10****

Here are the steps:

1. Run the tool, select Create media for another computer, and then select an ISO file to save to your local computer.
2. Right-click the downloaded ISO image file, select Open as Explorer, and run the setup program.
3. Select "Change windows installer" - "Not now" - "Next" - "Next", and finally will be prompted to keep your files and applications will do a system replacement repair.

This process can be repaired by replacing system files without affecting the data in the computer as much as possible. This is not a process to reinstall the system, nor is it a step to restore the Surface to factory Settings.

If the problem persists after you've done all this with Windows 10's image files, then the next step is probably to restore the Surface to factory Settings, and if it does, please allow me to share the complete steps here:

Creating and using a USB recovery drive for Surface - Microsoft Support ****

The link contains a full video guide to the steps, which are specially adapted to the Surface.

Of course, if there are other friendly customers or amazing volunteers who are willing to share some other methods with you here, you can also refer to them as appropriate.

As community support, we do not represent Microsoft, so I have no way to tell you if Microsoft will fix the issue in this next update. But the updates Microsoft does push are usually meant to fix problems.

Best Regards,

Mitchell | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 2

Thank you very much for the new solutions. I've successfully installed SurfacePro8_Win10_19045_24.103.34280.0.msi from the first link and restarted, but the issue persists.

I tried the second option next, creating a new administrator user account to log in. It looked as if it's a brand new PC with default desktop, Edge, etc. At first it doesn't flicker, but the moment I do my usual things, it starts flickering again. The only thing I did in this new account is downloading random music from Edge, putting the MP3 file on the user's "music" folder, then play the music on loop with the default windows Media Player. Afterwards I draw on the default Paint app using my pen from Surface Pro 4, after 12 minutes the flickering happens and the event viewer starts registering dwm.exe crashes. If there's no music playing, and I only have a single Paint window in my taskbar, it seems to not flicker (so far). The likely culprit is either the Media Player, some faulty surface sound driver, or that the surface cannot multitask without crashing dwm.exe. Recent windows updates must've ruined these, and I don't know how to revert these KB/Intel/Surface updates to an older version from early 2024. Is there a way?

I understand that you don't represent Microsoft, but if you can contact the SP8 windows update team, can you please tell them to fix this issue? Other users have similar problems and I hope windows 10 is still receiving updates in 2025. Please feel free to share this thread to them, I'll try to wait for the next update before trying those final nuclear solutions. Someone else did solve the problem by doing a complete factory reset and then immediately preventing all windows updates via registry before it gets a chance to update, as the damage is from the update itself.

Answer 3

Hi Molly,

Thank you for your understanding.

If the problem continues to recur in new accounts, then it is clear that the problem is from the system and not the media player or sound driver.

We can try to report the situation to the relevant departments, but there is actually no visual list to let you know the corresponding progress. So if you're looking for a way to make this issue as much known to the development team as possible, our recommendation is to post your feedback through the Feedback Center:

**** Send feedback to Microsoft with the Feedback Hub app - Microsoft Support

After publishing, you can share the feedback link here, we can vote for you, and more votes can make the corresponding team notice more quickly.

But I notice that you don't seem to have tried to use an ISO image file to perform a repair on the system, right? This process usually doesn't affect the data on the computer and is a conservative recovery solution, so I thought it was worth a try.

As for whether you can revert to an older version, and I actually did consider this possibility, you can click on the Start menu -- Settings -- Update and Security -- Recovery, and if you can see the option to "Go back to a previous version of Windows", then you can try to go back.

Finally, on Windows 10, it will end support on October 14, 2025, which means that your Surface will still receive updates until then.

Best Regards,

Mitchell | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 4

Thanks for the reply. If you can report this situation to the relevant departments that'd be wonderful! It's fine if there's no progress bar for me to check, as long as the SP8 update team is aware of the problem. For the feedback hub, I would need to gather lots of people to vote, it's much more difficult to be noticed there.

I haven't tried the ISO method yet, the license stuff spooked me out. I bought the Surface Pro 8 with windows already installed, and I never needed to register or check licenses as it just works straight out of the box. Does the ISO method revert to an old version of windows along with the surface + intel drivers?

I've tried browsing the recovery settings but couldn't find "go back to a previous version of windows". There's a resetting your pc option however, which claims to reset while saving my data as much as possible, though this seems to be the factory reset option. Does the reset method revert the windows/intel/driver back to the original from years ago? It was also stable on 2023.

Answer 5

Hi Molly,

In short, the ISO image file you download is usually the latest version released by Microsoft. If you are still comfortable with the Windows 10 version, just download the Windows 10 ISO image file and use it to try to overwrite your system. This is the solution that has the least impact on the data on your computer, but we still remind you to back up important data, just in case.

If you do not see the option to go back to a previous version of Windows, your Surface does not meet the conditions for going back. You saw resetting your PC, but you should have noticed that this step was not mentioned in my previous reply, because whichever option you choose will have an impact on the data in your computer.

Keep My files only the data in the C disk account folder, and Remove everything is basically equivalent to deleting all data.

The solution I shared with you in my first response to restoring the Surface with a USB recovery drive is the step to truly restoring the factory Settings.

So if you want to try reset, then I need to inform you of the risks:

Please try to select "Keep My files" only. After that, all the contents of your C drive will be "refreshed", but only the data in the user account folder of the C drive will be kept, and the data in other drive letters will not be affected. That is, if you have saved some data somewhere else on your C drive, this option will delete them completely unless you move them to your account folder:

Reset your PC - Microsoft Support

Best Regards,

Mitchell | Microsoft Community Support Specialist