Problem with explorer.exe and dwm.exe in Windows 7

Question

I'm using Window 7 Ultimate. I get a problem with two processes, namely explorer.exe and sometimes dwm.exe.

The two processes tend to use cpu between 20-30%.

And it only occurs when i play some game on my PC. My PC works perfect until I play some game.

And another important observation: They consume no cpu as such but only consumes when I try to refresh my desktop. I mean when I right-click on desktop. It takes seconds for refresh.

I have no virus problems.

I had already tried following things:

1. Kill explorer.exe and relaunch from task manager. (Problem still persists)

2. Kill dwm.exe, well it relaunches again. (Problem still persists)

3. Log Off and Log On. (Problem still persists)

4. Restart. Problem Solved. (But need an alternative).

Can anyone kindly suggest some quick fixes to the problem?

Answer 1

Those who get the same problem may refer to this question at super user asked by me.

https://superuser.com/questions/254343/window-7-problem-explorer-exe-dwm-exe

My problem solved with ShellExView.

Answer 2

Both explorer and dwm are "necessary" files that Windows runs. Explorer.exe is basically all the user interface you see on Windows: the desktop, the taskbar, explorer, etc. Similarly, dwm.exe is the Desktop Window Manager: it governs all the effects that were added with Vista and 7, like the taskbar thumbnails that appear when you hover over a taskbar item, transparency, etc. So it makes sense that you see action on them when trying to refresh the desktop.

I've never actually looked to see how much processing power they use at any given time, so I can't say whether that's excessive or not, but there's really nothing wrong with either one; they probably ought to be running, and unless they're causing undue CPU use, you probably don't need to worry about them. And if you do need to worry about them, then it might be a consequence of your computer not being powerful enough to run Windows 7.

All that said, this isn't really a question for this site. I'm still pretty new here myself, but I think this should be moved to Superuser?

Answer 3

Yeah, this is to be expected. Both of those are critical components of the Windows operating system.

Explorer.exe is responsible for the desktop, the file manager, the taskbar, and most visible components of the Windows shell. Generally, when you're not interacting with a particular application program, you're interacting directly with Windows Explorer. And it's still there in the background when applications are running, managing those applications and the underlying system.

DWM stands for "Desktop Window Manager", which should help to give away what it does. It's a graphical subsystem that was introduced in Windows Vista, and it's responsible for the fancy 3D effects that you get on your desktop now. It drives the "Aero" user interface, so things like glass transparency, Aero Peek, Aero Shake, and a host of other eye candy features are implemented by this process.

Understanding what both of those processes are and what they do should help to explain the phenomenon you cite in your question:

They consume no cpu as such but only consumes when i try to refresh my desktop. I mean when i right click on desktop.

When you refresh your desktop, you're invoking functionality provided by both of those processes. Explorer is responsible for drawing the desktop itself (programmatically, it's implemented as an iconic ListView control managed by Explorer), and DWM is responsible for the graphics subsystem that gets the desktop, in all its beautifully composited glory, onto the screen in the first place.

Using between 20-30% of your CPU is hardly an outrageous draw. That leaves plenty left over for your foreground applications. It's also difficult to monitor exactly what percentage of the CPU those processes are using without altering the results.

But, from the symptoms that you've described, you can be sure that you don't have a virus or anything else wrong with your computer. That's just Windows running, doing its thing. If your computer is struggling to keep up with the game that you're playing, you may need to consider upgrading some of your computer's components (namely your RAM, processor, and/or graphics card).

If you're recently upgraded your computer to Windows 7 from an earlier version (like Windows XP), and have noticed your performance slow down as a result, your graphics card may be struggling under the 800-pound gorilla that is DWM. All of the Aero effects are expensive to run—not a problem for today's overpowered and overpriced video cards that generally sit around doing nothing, but a significant performance hit for older systems that used to run just fine with older versions of the OS. You might try reverting to the Windows Classic theme, which will disable most of the Aero-themed goodness, but will also put some of the "pep" back into your computer's step. Do that by right-clicking on your desktop, selecting "Personalize", and changing your theme to Windows Classic.