Formerly known as Desktop Compositing Engine or DCE, desktop window manager or DWM is used to enable Windows Aero and visual themes. It was first introduced with Windows Vista, and is included in all subsequent of Microsoft Windows.

DWM requirements

  • A video card GPU that supports WDDM.
  • DirectX 9 support.
  • Pixel shader 2.0 support.
  • 32-bit per pixel support.

Operating system terms, Video card, Windows Vista

  • What is dwm.exe and why is it using so much memory?