Visual bug when opening windows on home PC driving me crazy.

Home PC specs

• Windows 11 Pro 25H2, fully updated
• Intel i7-12400F
• NVIDIA RTX 3050
• 16 GB DDR4
• ASUS entry-level H610 motherboard
• Dual-monitor setup: one 180 Hz display and one 144 Hz display

Work PC specs

• Windows 11 Pro 25H2, fully updated
• Intel i3-12100 (integrated graphics)
• Same ASUS H610 motherboard model as the home PC
• 16 GB DDR4
• Single-monitor setup 60hz

Issue:
ChatGPT refers to this as “misplacement flash”, but I cannot find this expression used anywhere online, it's very hard to know where to start fixing this.

On my home PC, not every time but very frequently, when opening a window for the first time—such as File Explorer, application windows, “Save As” dialogs (from any app), folder properties, or even the Windows shutdown screen—the window’s shadow (not the window content itself) briefly flashes in an incorrect position on the screen. This flash lasts less than a second, after which the window appears in the correct position.

It is difficult to describe more precisely, but the shadow appears momentarily offset before snapping to the correct location.

This behaviour does not occur at all on the work PC, despite running the same Windows 11 Pro build and sharing some specs.


Observations / things already tested

• The issue does not occur on a dual-boot installation of Windows 10 on the same hardware.
• NVIDIA driver version makes no difference; it occurs on every version tested.
• Disabling or enabling the following has no effect:
  • Multiplane Overlay (MPO)
  • HAGS
  • Game Mode
  • Windowed game optimisations
• Happens in both HDR and SDR modes.
• G-SYNC on or off makes no difference.
• Turning off either monitor does not resolve it.
• The issue seems to occur less frequently when NVIDIA Power Management is set to Prefer maximum performance.

Screen recording software (e.g. OBS) does not capture the issue, which, to me, suggests it may be related to DWM, idk.

If I install Windhawk and enable the “Bring back the borders” mod (which restores Windows 10-style square borders and shadows), the issue disappears immediately. This, to me, again points toward a DWM-related cause.

What else could be causing this? I have not found anyone else reporting this issue, and ChatGPT keeps suggesting the same troubleshooting steps I have already tried.

Video
I’ve attached a video showing the issue. Please focus on the top-left area of the screen. It is subtle and easy to miss, so it may require watching several times.


It's very distracting I really appreciate any help you could give.

(Sorry for my english, I'm not native, used ai to format the text)

Try a Clean Boot.

This will eliminate any startup apps and non Microsoft Services that Start with Windows.
If this works, You can Keep it this way, or you can add one or more services and startup items until the behavior returns, then you will know the culprit.

Also, try a different keyboard, as it may be a stuck key on the keyboard.

No dice. Still does it even right after a clean install. Guess I'll have to live with it.

Well well, just went deep with this one, it's definitely a windows issue:

Installed uxtheme patcher and used msstyleEditor to:
opened aero.msstyles of stock windows 11 theme
go to animations, 100 (it's what controls app open animations
copied the values from a windows 10 aero.msstyles, saved it and applied the new theme

voilá, the issue immediately goes away.

So indeed, nothing to do with the GPU, it's something about the animation itself. Side effect is apps open with windows 10 animation now, but i don't care, in fact, I prefer it :)

Spoke too soon, I was accessing my pc from chrome remote desktop when I did the msstyle changes and it seemed fixed, but accessing my machine physically I can see it's still happening and window open animations have not changed.

Here's a better video of the issue:


Notice the top left of the screen, that horrendous shadow that appears for a ms.

Some other troubleshooting I did:

- DWMBlurGlass app fixes the issue (So most definitely a dwm bug, as DWMBlurglass hooks in to it. Now I don't know if this is still related to my graphics card.)
- Screen recorders indeed can capture the glitch
- I've seen this in two other pcs, both with nvidia cards. Can this be a windows bug? I find it so strange that there's no mention of this on the internet, it's so apparent and distracting.
- Happens only with w32 apps and popup screens.

I have this too. I also have a Nvidia card. Probably something is weird with Windows 11 DWM and the Nvidia drivers. I think my drivers are from December, but I noticed it before that too. It doesn't happen too often for me.

Honestly I have just started ignoring almost every quirk of Windows 11 25H2. The OS is in a dreadful state when it comes to polish and Microsoft doesn't seem to want to acknowledge, let alone fix the issues.

Probably some visual effect not rendering properly. I would disable visual effects (animations, fades) and enable one at a time to find out which one is it. You can keep the specific effect disabled. Have you tried to download the official nVidia drivers directly from nVidia? Test both the Game Ready and the Studio versions. Also have you tried to set a lower screen refresh rate? Have you tried to disable/enable Vertical Sync? I would also try a different display cable or different output.

spapakons said:

Probably some visual effect not rendering properly. I would disable visual effects (animations, fades) and enable one at a time to find out which one is it. You can keep the specific effect disabled. Have you tried to download the official nVidia drivers directly from nVidia? Test both the Game Ready and the Studio versions. Also have you tried to set a lower screen refresh rate? Have you tried to disable/enable Vertical Sync? I would also try a different display cable or different output.

Click to expand...

Yes, tried all that, I've had this problem since like two years, tried every single thing possible.

DWMBlurglass fixes it, I've given up on trying to fix it or troubleshooting it by not using 3rd party apps.

It happens in all pc's I work with (my laptop, my desktop pc, my work pc and my wife's laptop). Somehow, those with internal intel graphics (like my work pc) it happens much much less frequently, but it still does from time to time.

I'm pretty sure this is a windows bug because I can reproduce it consistently. People probably don't care about it because they either don't notice it or it's so fast it doesn't bother them.

CarameloGay said:

It happens in all pc's I work with (my laptop, my desktop pc, my work pc and my wife's laptop). Somehow, those with internal intel graphics (like my work pc) it happens much much less frequently, but it still does from time to time.

I'm pretty sure this is a windows bug because I can reproduce it consistently. People probably don't care about it because they either don't notice it or it's so fast it doesn't bother them.

Click to expand...

If it's happening to all your PCs, perhaps it related to a 3rd party app you install. It doesn't happen to any of mine or the any of the 100+ I manage daily.

rick99 said:

If it's happening to all your PCs, perhaps it related to a 3rd party app you install. It doesn't happen to any of mine or the any of the 100+ I manage daily.

Click to expand...

Happening on a clean install, just tried again this week with 26200.7840. Just trigger the windows shutdown options screen multiple times in a row, you'll encounter this glitch. Happens very frequently when changing file permissions too and occasionally across the OS

Also, here it is again (in the video), two or three times happening in a row on a clean install with just browser, winrar and sumatrapdf installed so far:

CarameloGay said:

Just trigger the windows shutdown options screen multiple times in a row, you'll encounter this glitch. Happens very frequently when changing file permissions too and occasionally across the OS

Click to expand...

Nope. Just triggered it multiple times on two different Win 11 PCs in front of me. It doesn't happen here.

Well, must be something specific to all the pcs I have access to. Thing is, there's video evidence of it happening right here, it didn't happen on windows 10 and it doesn't happen if I install "bring back the borders" windhawk mod or DWMBlurglass (both hook into dwm) so clearly something changed in windows 11 DWM that's causing this.

If you are using any customization application, try disabling it and check again. This glitch suggest some effect that is not rendered properly or at least not at the appropriate time.

spapakons said:

If you are using any customization application, try disabling it and check again. This glitch suggest some effect that is not rendered properly or at least not at the appropriate time.

Click to expand...

Happens on a clean install ppl. In fact, it's the customization application that fixes it (windhawk or dwmblurglass)

If you can fix it somehow, then fine, for the moment, until you figure out a permanent solution.

This happens in both virtualbox and vwmares machines, so a windows issue 100% sure. Just going to use DWMBlurglass and forget about it.

Thank you everyone.

CarameloGay said:

This happens in both virtualbox and vwmares machines, so a windows issue 100% sure.

Thank you everyone.

Click to expand...

Perhaps a Windows issue with your hardware and configuration, but not a Windows issue for most.

Maybe it's a normal process that should happen in the background but is happening in the foreground for a millisecond. I use to see something like that all the time and then it just went away for about a year on Windows 7 and now just this last week I've seen it three or four times but it's not at startup but at random moments. It's probably not the exact same thing but it's very similar. Mine is more like a command prompt window but yours looks like it's just the outline of it. A lot of people have experienced this type of phenomena from time to time. I have not seen it on Win-11 yet. I'm always in the middle of something and dont check event viewer to see if there's a clue. It might happen more often then just when I see it. it's impossible to know.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050

Also . . . I don't have a colored background or that flower thing, all I have is a black desktop so I only see it when I'm in a window that's got a light background like this web page

Hi @CarameloGay, hi all,

I'm really glad I found your post.

I'm having the exact same problem. The window border appears in a wrong position for a fraction of a second just before the window is displayed.

The problem started about 4 or 5 months ago (end of 2025). It exist on Windows 11 25H2 (not yet tested 25H1), on 2 computers, and on dozens of VMs that I reinstall every day for work (I'm a developer).

It also appear on Windows 11 ARM installed on VMware Fusion on Macbook Pro M4. This excludes NVIDIA card or driver issue.

To test yourself as explained by @CarameloGay: click on Windows taskbar, hold the Alt key down, and press F4 repeatedly. Each time you press F4, the Shut Down dialog box opens and closes. Repeat the operation so that the window appears and then closes, and while you are doing this, stare at the upper left corner of the screen: you will sometimes see a black rectangular outline flashing.

This glitch occurs regularly with all Windows 11 dialog boxes randomly.