Desktop Windows Manager (DWM) memory leakage in Windows 10 (Version 2004).

Question

The infamous dwm.exe hogging lots of memory. FYI this is not a specific program issue. It just happens with any programs, activities randomly.

I'm getting really tired of killing dwm.exe every so often so that it will release the occupied memory. When is this going to be fixed? Is this ever going to be fixed even?

Answer 1

Update to this issue:

Apparently when the system goes to sleep/hibernate, the DWM process would massively inflate into the gigabyte region. This also applies to hybrid shutdown as compared to full shutdown. Running on Windows 10 build 19042.844, with the graphics driver as 27.20.100.9313 for Intel HD and 461.51 for Nvidia.

It's clear cut that there are more users facing this issue and Microsoft and Intel aren't looking into it. Apart from restarting DWM process via Task Manager for a short term resolution, there is no other way to resolve this. The issue would either return to bloat even more, or it's some issue with sleep/hibernation that's causing an excessive waste of onboard resources leading to performance and inefficiency.

Answer 2

Same problem for me.

I have a lenovo p53 with 32Gb RAM installed, windows 10 (version 20H2) with all the updates.

Desktop windows manager (in italian "gestione finestre desktop") eats up to 10 GB and more ![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/910ebd6f-5832-415a-b420-4e548f37aab4?platform=QnA"https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/5d9ed684-4c4a-4120-85f8-3d4cb6d34462?platform=QnA" rel="ugc nofollow">

I attach the situation right now

Micorsoft, Intel, please help us

Answer 3

But do you still have an Intel CPU with an Intel HD? Its possible that this is still rendering anything non-intensive like your desktop and thus still causing a memory leak.

Answer 4

I am experiencing this issue as well, it first happened when ironically I did a full clean reinstall of windows in february 2021, my laptop is a dell xps 15 9570 i7 8750h 16gb ram 4k screen, the problem is I believe in the windows update or the intel hd driver. With fast boot disabled and no sleep or hibernate it was still happening. Right now  dwm.exe is using 140,8 mb of ram idle, and it does not appear to be leaking for now when using the computer after shutdown and sleep. I installed intel hd 630 27.20.100.9168 from intel website for this. I fear this will happen again when windows update forces a new update, as I said it first started happened to me in a clean windows reinstall february 2021, some people reported it far as october 2020 in intel foruns. Sorry for my bad english, and I hope I could provide some useful information for debugging, this issue "dwm.exe leaking memory" was acknowledged (https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2021/03/10/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-21332/) "We’re working on a fix to address a DWM memory leak that was introduced in the previous flight." but I don't know if it is the same issue, please fix this.

Answer 5

Hello Cody here again!

I think we need to make new thread... Maybe it is exactly windows fault... 

I have occasionally different size huge dwm agan... up to 4 gb...