DeskScapes appears to leak GDI regions in explorer.exe

October 20, 2026 9:59 AM from

App Version: 26.0.0.1

It appears that with DeskScapes loaded, explorer.exe steadily accumulates GDI objects, mostly Region objects, until it reaches the 10,000 per-process limit. Explorer then either hangs (taskbar partly unresponsive, Ctrl + Alt + Del unreliable) or terminates itself via explorer!CTray::CheckGDIHandleLimit (fail-fast, 0xc0000409). With DeskScapes unloaded and Fences and Start11 still active, Explorer's GDI count stayed flat (about 360) for 17+ hours.

Environment

Windows 11 Insider, build 28120
DeskScapes 26.0.0.1, single static image (no Dream, no playlist, no desktop effects)
Fences 6.5.8, Start11 2.8.1.0
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080; Dell UltraSharp 43 (U4320Q, 4K) primary, Wacom Cintiq 16 (1080p) secondary (usually off; display mode set to "PC screen only" during testing)

Observations
I logged Explorer's GDI and USER object counts every 5 minutes with GetGuiResources.

With DeskScapes loaded: GDI grew by hundreds to thousands per hour during normal use. While the PC was idle, it also stepped up once an hour, consistently between about :05 and :10 past the hour (+375 to +1,032 per step). Overnight it reached 10,000 and stayed pinned, leaving Explorer partly hung by morning.
Isolation tests, unloading each product from explorer.exe and confirming with Process Explorer's Find Handle or DLL:
- Start11 unloaded (Fences and DeskScapes active): the leak and the hourly steps continued.
- DeskScapes unloaded (Fences only): flat at about 357–371 for 17+ hours, with no hourly steps.
- DeskScapes reloaded (wallpaper file pinned locally): GDI rose from 361 to over 1,700 within minutes of normal use.
- DeskScapes uninstalled (Fences and Start11 active): stable under 500.
Ruled out as triggers: Windows' background setting is "Picture" (no slideshow or Spotlight); DeskScapes desktop effects were off. The wallpaper image originally sat in a OneDrive Files On-Demand folder that was not set to "Always keep on this device"; pinning it locally did not stop the leak.
Crash evidence: a full dump of one crash shows explorer!CTray::CheckGDIHandleLimit at the top of the stack, with Start10_64 and DesktopDock64 frames in the message chain. It appears those modules were only handling a message when the limit tripped, not that they caused the leak.

For now, I've uninstalled DeskScapes.

I'm curious what DeskScapes might be doing on an hourly timer when it's showing a single static image.

Hopefully this report helps you sort out the problem.

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