(Your City/Region) – If you’ve noticed your PC feeling a little sluggish lately and you're a Windows 11 user on the latest preview build, you might have an army of invisible Task Managers to blame. A recently released update seems to have introduced a strange and persistent bug that causes the Task Manager application to replicate itself every time you try to close it.
The culprit appears to be the KB5067036 preview update, which was intended to deliver a suite of improvements and fixes. Instead, as first reported by Windows Latest, it has introduced a head-scratching glitch. When users close the Task Manager window by clicking the standard "X" in the top-right corner, the window vanishes, but the process doesn't terminate. Instead, a new instance of Taskmgr.exe starts running in the background.
The Ghost in the Machine: How the Bug Manifests
This isn't just a visual glitch; it's a memory-hogging phantom process. Each time you open and close Task Manager with the "X," another instance is added to your running processes. These duplicates continue to consume system resources, primarily RAM.
For the average user who might open Task Manager once to check on a misbehaving program, this likely won't cause a noticeable issue. However, for power users, IT professionals, or anyone who frequently monitors their system's performance, this bug can quickly spiral out of control.
Imagine checking your processes ten times throughout a workday. You could end up with ten dormant Task Manager instances silently eating up memory in the background, potentially leading to reduced system performance and slower response times.
How to Check if Your PC is Affected
Curious if your system is haunted by duplicate Task Managers? It's easy to verify.
Open Task Manager. You can do this by right-clicking on your taskbar and selecting "Task Manager," or by pressing the handy keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Esc.
Once open, simply click the red "X" button in the corner to close it.
Immediately reopen Task Manager using one of the methods above.
Look at the list of running processes. If you see more than one "Windows Task Manager" entry, congratulations, you've encountered the bug. Each instance represents one time you've "closed" the app.
The Current Workaround: How to Actually Close Task Manager
Until Microsoft issues an official fix, users need to be proactive about how they quit the Task Manager. The key is to avoid the "X" button entirely.
Method 1: Use the "End Task" Option (Recommended)
This is the safest and most straightforward method.
Open Task Manager.
Instead of clicking "X," right-click on the "Windows Task Manager" process itself within the list.
Select "End Task." This will properly terminate the process without creating a duplicate.
Method 2: The Command Line Fix
For those comfortable with the Command Prompt, a quick command can nuke all stray Task Manager processes.
Open Command Prompt or Windows Terminal as an administrator.
Type the following command and press Enter:
taskkill /im taskmgr.exe /f
This will forcefully end all running instances of Task Manager.
Microsoft has not yet publicly acknowledged this specific issue. The KB5067036 update is part of the Windows Insider Program, which is a testing channel, so such bugs are not entirely unexpected. The company recently demonstrated its ability to react quickly with an emergency out-of-band update earlier this month to fix USB detection issues in the Windows Recovery Environment.
For now, users experiencing this bug should adopt the workaround and keep an eye out for a new cumulative update that will hopefully squash this multiplying menace for good.
A Windows 11 bug is duplicating Task Manager process when you use the 'X' close button to exit it.
— Windows Latest (@WindowsLatest) October 29, 2025
This means Task Manager won’t quit on Windows 11, sending each instance to background.
It appears that the October 2025 optional update (Build 26200.7019/26100.7019, which… pic.twitter.com/dsjP1rMwCH