DWM.EXE High CPU (One Core) On Target System after Remote Desktop Disconnect on Windows 10 x64 1903 (Fully Patched)

Same issue here

If the host is left alone with dwm.exe taking up one full core it will eventually crash and log out the session

Intel 4770K with Asus Sabertooth Z87 motherboard using integrated intel gpu for the host (display driver 20.19.15.5063)

Intel 3770K with Asus Sabertooth Z77 motherboaed using nvidia gpu for the client

Faulting application name: dwm.exe, version: 10.0.18362.1, time stamp: 0x6468b8f9

Faulting module name: dwmcore.dll, version: 10.0.18362.1, time stamp: 0xb9c883ae

Exception code: 0xc00001ad

Fault offset: 0x000000000015bada

Faulting process id: 0x1cf4

Faulting application start time: 0x01d5118f548421db

Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\dwm.exe

Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\dwmcore.dll

Report Id: 8db71ccd-573e-41f5-8ca8-a2954c58ee5a

Faulting package full name: 

Faulting package-relative application ID: 

I may be having a similar issue on a Lenovo laptop. I have 1903 on other hardware and works fine. I use this Lenovo laptop that has both Intel and nVidia GPUs running the latest drivers available for both. As far as I can tell, the system is fully up to date. However, if I RDP to this laptop, at some point the RDP session terminates and my user logged out. Looking at the event log, I see DWM.EXE has crashed two to three times with connected devices crashing events as well.

I have not monitored DWM.EXE's memory and CPU footprint. I just know I've updated to 1903 on this laptop at least 7 times and each time, I've had to revert back to 1809 as this issue is destructive to productivity. It's also the only system I have that isn't running 1903 at this time.

The instructions in the initial post fixed my issues. Let's hope the legacy RDP stays as long as modern RDP has issues

It does require Windows 10 Pro. A home version lacks the required policy editor

Thank you for posting this fix, worked as a charm.

I have been suffering this issue for months. I did successfully find the basic display driver workaround but didn't go further as you did. Great troubleshooting!

win10 1903 + i5 3470 hd graphic, tried various intel display drivers.

Have the same issue with my old Lenovo Thinkpad X-220 that I uses as a server at home. To monitor the issue I use WSL to ssh into the target (RDP host/server/X-220) machine and list the dwm.exe processes:

$ alias showdwm='/mnt/c/Windows/System32/tasklist.exe /v | awk "/dwm/ {print \$1, \$8, \$9, \$10, systime()}"

### dwm processes (one) before the RDP session. You can see that DWM-3 is "silent" and consumes no CPU

dwm.exe Window Manager\DWM-3 0:00:00 1564384094

$ showdwm

dwm.exe Window Manager\DWM-3 0:00:00 1564384118

### dwm processes during RDP session. Both processes are silent as can be seen by sampling the tasklist with some time in-between (here 27 seconds)

$ showdwm

dwm.exe Window Manager\DWM-3 0:00:00 1564384161

dwm.exe Window Manager\DWM-1 0:00:01 1564384161 

$ showdwm

dwm.exe Window Manager\DWM-3 0:00:00 1564384188

dwm.exe Window Manager\DWM-1 0:00:01 1564384188

### dwm processes after the RDP session ends. Now DWM-1, which was the process initated with RDP, begins to consume CPU. 13 seconds CPU consumption during 13 seconds of real time. Corresponds to 25% consumption on the machine. Fan spins up.

$ showdwm

dwm.exe Window Manager\DWM-3 0:00:00 1564384207

dwm.exe Manager\DWM-1 0:00:06 N/A 1564384207

$ showdwm

dwm.exe Window Manager\DWM-3 0:00:00 1564384220

dwm.exe Manager\DWM-1 0:00:19 N/A 1564384220

### My workaround, kill all dwm.exe processes:

$ alias killdwm='/mnt/c/Windows/System32/taskkill.exe /IM "dwm.exe" /F'

$ killdwm
SUCCESS: The process "dwm.exe" with PID 10972 has been terminated.
SUCCESS: The process "dwm.exe" with PID 9648 has been terminated.

### Now we are back to one, silent, process
$ showdwm 
dwm.exe Window Manager\DWM-3 0:00:00 1564384271
$ showdwm 
dwm.exe Window Manager\DWM-3 0:00:00 1564384279

@beos59,

A valid approach - you could define a new Task Scheduler job with

General

- Run whether user is logged on or not / Run with Highest privileges

Trigger

- On remote disconnect from any user session

Action

- Start a program

- c:\windows\system32\taskkill.exe

- Add arguments "/IM dwm.exe /F"

etc

You get a few warning events in the event log (Desktop Window Manager process has exited), but other than that there doesn't appear to be any side effects.

I do wish Microsoft would recognize this problem and fix it !

As a workaround on all of my affected machines I have used Group Policy Editor to set

Local Computer Policy

 Computer Configuration

  Administrative Templates

   Windows Components

    Remote Desktop Service

     Remote Desktop Session Host

      Remote Session Environment

       Use WDDM graphics display driver for Remote Desktop Connections

to DISABLED

This forces RDP to use the old (and now deprecated XDDM drivers)

After rebooting, behaviour returns to normal and after disconnecting from an RDP session the RDP host (target machine) no longer shows DWM.EXE consuming CPU.

This isn't a long term fix (to rely on a deprecated feature). I also don't understand why only a limited number of users are affected, but for now, I'm up and running again, and hoping for a Microsoft fix.

You are a legend this worked for me. Before I found this thread I was closing out of the session then using Anydesk to login back into windows just to stop the issue. The crazy thing is Anydesk would lock up after the login but it stopped CPU 1 going to 100%.