High RAM usage with no programs running - EXPLAINED and "FIXED"

[Light-Yagami]

Hello everyone,

 

As of writing this post, some users (like me) may experience high RAM usage after running the system for a while with many windows opens. When said windows are closed, RAM usage doesn't decrease accordingly. 

 

The problem lies in the "Desktop Window Manager". It's a known Windows 10 memory leak that Microsoft hasn't fixed yet. In my case, it results to over 8 additional GB of RAM usage.

There is a way to help it. You can terminate the process while the system is running with no windows opened (might cause program crashes otherwise) and it will restart in a couple of seconds.

 

How to do it:

Open: Task Manager > Performance Tab > Open Resource Monitor (bottom) > Memory Tab > find process "dwm.exe" > right click on process > End Process

 

Screen will go black for a few seconds, after which the process will restart without using more than 200mb of RAM and you can go back to work. 

 

P.S: Restarting the system does the same thing, but for those who don't want to - this is the only way for now. I hope Microsoft fixes it soon.

 

Cheers 

 

[Mark Kaine]

On 8/7/2021 at 1:04 PM, Light-Yagami said:

this is the only way for now

are you sure ISLC doesnt do the same thing?

https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1256

 

[Light-Yagami]

On 8/21/2021 at 3:47 PM, Mark Kaine said:

are you sure ISLC doesnt do the same thing?

https://www.wagnardsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1256

 

Could be. But I'm not going to install a shoddy 3rd party software to fix a Microsoft problem and clean my appdata subfolders when said 3rd party software doesn't clean up after itself when I uninstall it.