Instead of applications drawing their displays directly to your screen, applications write the picture of their window to a specific place in memory. This article is part of our ongoing series explaining various processes found in Task Manager, like ctfmon.exe, mDNSResponder.exe, conhost.exe, rundll32.exe, Adobe_Updater.exe, and many others. Don’t know what those services are? Better start reading! So What Is Desktop Window Manager?ĭesktop Window Manager (dwm.exe) is a compositing window manager that renders all those pretty effects in Windows: transparent windows, live taskbar thumbnails, Flip3D, and even high resolution monitor support. This process is a vital part of Windows that you cannot prevent from running. This allows Windows to add effects like transparency and live taskbar thumbnails.
The Desktop Window Manager process (dwm.exe) composites the display of application windows before drawing it to your screen.
