Why is dwm.exe using so much memory?
The DWM.EXE
process will consume a lot of memory when you have multiple screens and the system performance is set to the default of Let Windows choose what's best for my computer. To change this:
- Go to Computer -> Right click and choose Properties
- Select the Advanced tab
- Select the Settings button under the Performance section. This will popup the Performance Options window
- On the first tab is Visual Effects. Select
Adjust for best performance
orCustom
(and select the feature(s) you want).
I chose Custom
myself and selected only the Smooth edges of fonts
to reduce memory usage from 534M to 6M with running 4 windows.
Since I cannot comment yet, I'll add this as additional answer. Microsoft has confirmed a memory leak in DWM.EXE: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3078667
In short, DWM.EXE leaks memory when status windows are open for a long time.