Ask HN: Why is my Windows computer running 10,000 threads idling?
I noticed today in my Windows 11 Task Manager that I have ~10,000 threads. If I kill all traces of Chrome it's still at ~8,000. Sorting by thread count, System is ~500, Explorer is ~350, then it tails off. I do wonder why Dropbox.exe needs 250+ or Steamwebhelper.exe (Steam itself is not running) needs 100+ threads to operate.
It's not a problem, my computer is super fast, I just wonder how we got here from super optimized Quake engines..
Screens: https://postimg.cc/gallery/JyYkNDg Modern apps are way more complex than Quake. Dropbox needs threads for syncing files, watching folders, updating UI, etc. Steam's web helper is basically running a mini-browser. Back in the Quake days, we had single-core CPUs and tiny RAM - every thread mattered. Now with 16+ cores and tons of memory, it's cheaper to just spawn threads for everything rather than write complex single-threaded code. Your computer's fine - this is just how software works now. We traded elegance for "throw hardware at the problem." I'd rather have 10,000 idle threads to effectively use my multicore CPU than have a stuttering system.