Ever have your menu clicked item from your right click menu (called the context menu) stay on your screen after you select it? Is it still there right now and getting in the way of reading this? You’re not alone! It is a performance bug with the Desktop Window Manager (DWM) and the graphics performance that comes stock on windows machines. If you like the effect we will show you how to reset it but this does not fix it.

Resetting the Desktop Window Manager

Resetting is easy, you can either do this through the task manager or through a simple command line, in our opinion, the command line is a little easier but it may not work depending on your permissions level of your user profile.

Through Task Manager

Open your task manager by 1) Right clicking on your taskbar and selecting “Task Manager” or 2) Ctrl+Alt+Delete and select Task Manager Go to the “Processes Tab” and select dwm.exe (there should only be one unless multiple people are signed in, if so then choose yours by looking at the User Name column) Once selected, hit the “End Process” in the bottom left hand corner. Windows will ask you “Are you sure” hit “End Process” again Your screen will go blank, flicker and come back and your menu ghost will be gone!

Resetting through command-line

Open command line by going to your start and type in the box ‘command’ you will want to open “Command Prompt” that comes up in the search results. You can also type cmd.exe and hit enter and it will also open Once open, type the following command in and hit enter, your screen will go blank, flicker and come back and your menu ghost will be gone.

tskill dwm

Be cautious of the space and the spelling, type it exactly as you see it in order for it to work, if you get an error, you misspelt it somehow!

Fixing the Menu Ghosts

Want to bust those ghosts instead? You will need to go into your advanced performance settings and uncheck one item, this wont get rid of a ghost thats already there, but it will get rid of future, you will still need to follow the reset steps above.

You will be venturing into advanced properties on your computer. Although our steps are thorough and the screen you will be going to is not “dangerous” please be careful, if you change a setting not listed below you could seriously mess up your computer!

We will show you the shortcut of getting there, the long way is 1) Computer properties 2) Advanced System Settings 3) “Settings…” in the Performance box. This gives you chances to go into the wrong settings and do some damage! We don’t want that to happen! Here is the shortcut. Just like searching for command prompt above, go to your start screen and in the box type “performance” (without the quotes) you want to click the “Adjust the Appearance and Performance of Windows”                       This will open up the performance options, you will need to uncheck the box beside “Fade out menu items after clicking” Once unchecked hit ok, after a few seconds the screen will close and the ghosting will no longer appear.

What did I Just do? The “ghosting” is caused by the fade visual effect that has been around since Windows 2000. Some graphics drivers cause the ghosting on some windows machines. You are simply turning off that effect, your menu clicks will not be as fancy but your screen will be clear of menu click-ghosts. You probably won’t even notice the difference we barely did!

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