Windows 11 Task Manager Bug Creates Infinite Instances

Unmasking the Endless Task Manager: A Windows 11 Conundrum

The Mysterious Persistence of Task Manager in Windows 11's Latest Update

A curious glitch has emerged in the current Windows 11 October update, identified as KB5067036, which affects the behavior of Task Manager. This update, currently offered as an optional download, appears to grant the system monitoring tool an unusual level of persistence.

The Peculiar Phenomenon: Ghost Instances and Resource Drain

As observed by various tech enthusiasts, merely clicking the "close" button on the Task Manager window, typically marked by an 'x' in the upper right corner, does not fully shut down the application. Instead, the visual interface vanishes, but the underlying process continues to operate silently in the background. Subsequent attempts to launch Task Manager will initiate entirely new instances, while the previous, invisible ones remain active. This leads to a growing number of Task Manager processes accumulating within the system's memory, each consuming a small portion of CPU power and memory, typically ranging from 0% to 1.5% CPU usage and about 20-25MB of RAM per instance. Over time, this unintended accumulation can significantly diminish overall system performance and resource availability.

Temporary Solutions for an Unintended Feature

Fortunately, there are interim measures to manage this issue. Users can right-click on each active Task Manager instance listed within Task Manager itself and select the 'End Task' option. Alternatively, a more efficient method involves opening a Command Prompt and executing the command \"taskkill /im taskmgr.exe /f\" to forcefully terminate all running Task Manager processes simultaneously. This provides a temporary workaround until a permanent fix is deployed by Microsoft.

The Origin of the Anomaly and Anticipated Resolution

The emergence of this bug is particularly noteworthy given that the KB5067036 update was intended to bring enhancements and corrections to Task Manager, including improvements to how applications are grouped with their associated processes. It's plausible that an attempt to address one set of issues inadvertently introduced this new, rather comical, problem. Since the update was released on October 28th, the bug is relatively new. It is widely expected that Microsoft will prioritize and swiftly release a patch to rectify this oversight, restoring normal functionality to Task Manager and preventing its unintended resource consumption.