Microsoft engineer explains why Windows 11 Task Manager freezes

Windows 11 Task Manager and the taskbar can stop responding when a system is under heavy load, according to Microsoft engineer Raymond Chen. Chen says that when a PC is CPU-starved, every process suffers, including the tools intended to manage the system.

Image: Windows Latest

Increasing the priority of Task Manager will not fix these freezes. While Windows uses priority levels from 0 to 31 to decide which thread gets CPU time, priority does not allow a thread to skip a lock or a file held by another process. Chen explains that a high-priority thread can still get stuck if it is waiting for a resource held by a slower thread. For example, no amount of CPU priority can make a thread wait any less for slow network file access.

Microsoft uses a feature called AutoBoost so that a thread holding a resource matches the priority of the thread waiting for it. However, Chen notes that Task Manager remains difficult to fix because it runs on the same system it is trying to rescue. Additionally, Taskbar freezes can sometimes stem from explorer.exe reliability issues.