Solved Disable DWM on Windows 11 (27898)

im using windows 11 canary 27898, and have come across threads and programs that disable DWM. i decided to go ahead and rename the dwm.exe file to dwm.exe.bak and see what happens when rebooting.

after restarting, windows black screens at login. so i then renamed it back and simply killed the process after logging into windows. it black screens for a second then comes back with dwm.exe running again.

is it possible to disable DWM on later Windows 11? i did try the NoMoreDWM.exe program and it worked


i wonder how that program works to not black screen like with me

Why do you want to disable DWM?

For goodness sake,,,WHY? It's asinine for anyone to even consider it..
Modern versions of Windows rely heavily on DWM for core functionality, and disabling it can disrupt the entire graphical interface leading to instability, visual glitches and even crashes.

Performance reasons. This particular app clearly states "requires ExplorerPatcher or StartAllBack" (presumably to take over missing features).

garlin said:

Performance reasons.

Click to expand...

How much? 5%, 10% or anything noticeable.

Sounds like the latest craze on Reddit and YouTube.

I dunno. There's desperate people on older PC's who play competitive online games. And they're trying to shave every percentage point of performance. It's an entire sub-culture of DWM-haters.

I can truly admit I'm too old to play those games, so I can't blame Windows "bloat" as my excuse.

Hi @garlin

I'd much rather use the computer than endlessly tamper with Windows. Been there done that years ago and gave up on it as a waste of time.
I don't play competitive games online either, 68 years old with reflexes that are not fast enough anymore for that sort of thing.

when i used windows 7, i could disable dwm.exe with no issue. it appears alot of the GUI depends on DWM nowadays, including the taskbar. dwm also controls the transparency and other desktop effects which i disable anyway

when looking at pictures from the NoMoreDWM github, the system reminded me of my Linux machine with no taskbar or icons, and just a terminal window. if need be, i can just enable DWM and other services to get the GUI back for maintenance.

i tried looking through the code on the NoMoreDWM github for clues as too what its doing to help figure out why im blackscreening at login, but its hard to read the code.

ive made alot of progress here, and made two scripts

the "Windows\Resources" and "Windows\SystemApps" directories can also be renamed and backed up so you can test the system without these directories

Resources contains all the modern (yuck) themes, and when deleting them, the original Win95/98 classic theme is somewhat restored. ive only tested this in a non-DWM emvironment, but am excited to see if it works in a normal DWM environment. thats another thread though

interestingly though you must remove the Resource directory for games to run at full speed in non-DWM environment, but the cs2 benchmark keeps crashing on me. i think the issue is with SystemApps

when removing the SystemApps directory (this must be done in WinRE, as SystemApps programs are running so the directory cant be removed) , theres a black screen after logging in. the desktop icons never appear. im going to find which SystemApps program is required for the desktop to draw icons and see if cs2 crashes then when Resources folder is removed

does anyone by chance know what SystemApp is responsible for desktop function?

i should also mention these youtube videos helped me alot

I want to be polite here. DO NOT DELETE C:\Windows\SystemApps.

If you want to play around on your PC, it's a personal learning experience. DON'T ALLOW PEOPLE TO DO THIS TO THEIR PC's.
Some critical Windows UI functions reside under:


You can't re-install these UWP packages without doing a restore or repair install.

the scripts backup all the essential system files and renames them "bak" at the end. the video tutorials do show them deleting files, but i personally saved them since i want to be able to switch back and forth between environments

I consider you a tinkering "pro or semi-pro". Your GitHub's random visitors prolly don't fall in the same category. I answer quite a few debloating questions, and when you remove these packages, bad stuff happens relative to the desktop and UWP apps.

Not sure why any of this if the OP's system has 64 GB of memory.

@garlin

im flattered by the comment, i couldnt have gotten there without you brother. i totally get it though, i accidently deleted my dwm.exe and had to refresh the machine yesterday lol. im trying to think of how i can back them up and prevent them from accidently getting written over or someone running the wrong script.

i could have it create two backups of the file, incase the original backup gets overwritten. my hairline was receding trying to come with with a solution lol. the best thing i can think of is that the scripts create two backups, whether the disable or enable script is ran incase someone accidently runs the wrong one. for example have dwm.exebak and also dwm.exebakbak incase something happens to dwm.bak

@KevTech
i may have 64GB of ram (for gentoo), but i also only have an i7 7700 and 5500 xt. i hate to sound ungrateful but they arent amazing, especially when i was using an 13900kf and 4090 for a couple years. i 100% have to say there is a difference in mouse response when tweaking your system.

Any idea, what could cause 3-5% CPU spikes in the latest Canary? It used to be flatlined, but lately, it just spikes. Maybe DWM?

is this on a fresh vanilla install or after tweaking it? ive been playing around with dwm disabled and notice so far its slower without it. although this is natural since dwm was made to increase desktop performance. it doesnt help gaming at all though, which is why they have had to add all these Independent Flip and Direct Flip stuff to bypass it.

but does independent flip TRULY bypass DWM? lol im going to try and figure that out. i look at DWM as if its a mini video game running in the background chewing up your GPU resources lol.

the argument for dwm here is the desktop is rendered via the CPU without it, making the desktop slower. some say why chew up cpu resources when the gpu can do it with much less resources. if you just do desktop work, dwm is a great idea. but for gaming, its just another layer your game must go through before its displayed.

my fault on rambling lol but its hard to say what it is. but i would say dwm is unlikely. i was able to get the cs2 benchmark to run full speed without dwm by removing the "Windows\Resource" folder and oddly enough, enabling FSO. Disabling FSO with no DWM gave worst fps ironically, as you get more fps with FSO disabled when DWM is on.

i have to double check this though. im about to do some dwm testing right now. if your systems vanilla i would say it just needs some tweaks lol. you know whats funny, we disable so much stuff that if there was a bug in cortana or some random windows service that spikes you cpu to 100% we would have no idea because we disable all of the potential problems lol

so i just got done doing some more testing with dwm disabled. when disabling FSO, i can confirm this locks fps to 100. enabling FSO will have normal performance. ive found which SystemApps are required for the PC to be functional.

Microsoft.WindowsAppRuntime.vNext.CBS contains File Explorer

Microsoft.UI.Xaml.CBS causes constant screen flicker and blinking when removed

MicrosoftWindows.Client.Core causes black screen after login when removed

whats odd is that in those videos i posted earlier, they all remove the SystemApps folder completely. Enderman was on Windows 11 as well, i think the other two dudes were on Win10. im assuming with the latest windows 11, you can no longer delete the SystemApps folder like they do

cs2 still crashes during the benchmarks when i remove the "Windows\Resources" folder. whats so odd is, when i leave the Resources there, cs2 wont crash during the benchmark, but fps is lowered substantionally.

i dont know how the theme system worked in Windows 98 or 7, but i think 7 was the last os to allow classic theme without tweaks. if i copy the "Windows\Resources" from a vista machine, would that enable classic theme?

i made a video showing Windows 11 with no DWM. unlike the other videos, i test games in this enviromment. i also was testing different scenerios with different directories enabled and disabled which ill post below as well.

Reasonable ways to speedup your computer: Instead of disabling the GUI entirely (we are not in the 80's to exclusively use command prompt, for Goodness sake), disable all useless visual effects, such as transparency, animations and fades. It will make a huge difference in performance, especially if you are using onboard graphics on a rather old CPU. Next logical step is to disable all startup applications. I don't need automated updates, I can check manually every time. Also I don't need too many apps loading at startup, so they load faster when I need to use them. I prefer my system being faster overall and wait 3-4 more seconds to manually load them when I actually need them. Needless to say that if your system still uses a mechanical disk, replace it with an SSD. It will make it at least 10 times faster!

@spapakons
i honestly dont mind my machine looking like a 1970s mainframe system with just a terminal. thats how my linux machine was. i say its either that or windows 95 theme for me. the fact windows dropped classic theme is one of the reasons i went to linux. but theres no bigger rush than sitting infront of a terminal thats apple ii phosphor green.

i should mention now this important note. some of the games didnt launch fullscreen because you have to make sure your desktop resolution matches the games resolution.

my desktop is 1366x768 and some of those games launched at 1024x768, so it put it in window mode since it didnt match my desktop resolution. im going to test again with my desktop resolution being the same as the games resolution and see how they perform in a part 2 follow up