Summary

  • A reported Windows 11 bug causes a new background Task Manager instance to spawn when the Task Manager is closed.
  • Repeated opens can create dozens of Task Manager copies (~20-25 MB each); 100 copies use up 2GB of RAM.
  • To stop them, use "End task" from the Processes tab or run: taskkill /im taskmgr.exe /f.

No matter how things go topsy-turvy in Windows, you always have the trusted Task Manager to bail you out. However, what if the Task Manager itself starts bugging out? Well, it turns out the answer to a malfunctioning Task Manager is to apply a second Task Manager to it.

Such is the case with one reported Windows 11 bug, where closing the Task Manager results in another Task Manager opening. If you're not careful, you end up having a whole processes page stuffed to the gills with Task Managers, all of which are taking up a fair share of your PC's hardware.

The Windows Task Manager is reportedly making more Task Managers

As spotted by Windows Latest, there's reportedly a new bug in the latest Windows 11 build. Every time you click the "X" button to close the Task Manager, it creates a new instance of the Task Manager in the background. If you press the Task Manager hotkey, a new one is made, which in turn creates yet another clone when X'd out of. Do this enough, and your system gets filled up with Task Manager instances.

This begs the question: if you spam the Task Manager, how much would it slow down the PC? Fortunately, Windows Latest had the same idea I had:

I went on a spree and opened and closed Task Manager about 100 times, ending up with 100 instances, each using 20–25 MB of RAM. That’s about 2 GB in total, which could be a performance nightmare on low-end hardware. But I’ve 32GB of RAM, so the impact is very minimal.

Windows Latest claims the best way to shut down the Task Manager and its clones is to open the Processes tab, select the process you want to terminate, and click "End task." That should close the manager without creating a copy. Or, if you want to dip into the Command Prompt, you can open it up and use the command taskkill /im taskmgr.exe /f to get rid of all instances.

It seems that the bug isn't universal, so you may not encounter it on your own device. However, if you open and close the Task Manager frequently, it's worth double-checking for any unwanted processes running in the background.