After upgrading to Windows 11 from 10, one thing I notice immediately is that whenever I switch to Chinese Input Method, more specifically Microsoft Pinyin, the CTF Loader (ctfmon.exe) process goes nuts, taking around 20% CPU for several seconds (~10). I'm not exactly sure how Windows shows CPU %, my CPU is i7-9700K (8 cores, 8 logical threads). During the 10 seconds or so, I am not able to type anything and the whole system UI seems janky if not stuck. What's worse is, it not only happens when I switch between input methods, but also when I am staying on MS Pinyin and just temporarily switching to English mode then back. Because of the punctuation difference I sometimes have to do it a lot.
Turning on compatibility mode helps, but the janky experience still occurs on the very first time I switch to MS Pinyin. The following attempts including switching between Chinese and English mode, and between different IME, work OK. CTF Loader stays calm. This is my current workaround.
Restore IME default settings doesn't fix it.
Adding it to the anti virus exclusion list does not seem to make any difference. That was a desperate try.
I've been googling relevant keywords for the past week or 2 and I haven't found anything that helps my case. Maybe the majority of the Chinese (mainland pinyin in particular) community hasn't got to try Win11 just yet, but I'm starting to think maybe it only happens on my machine.
Anyway, does it ring a bell for anyone? Any help / suggestion will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
1 Answer
Ctfmon is the process that controls Alternative User Input and the Office Language bar, so it's natural for it to be activated when you change the input language.
You should check first that it is the real thing by right-click
in Task Manager and selecting "Open file location".
You should find it in C:\Windows\System32\ctfmon.exe - anything else
is a virus masquerading as ctfmon.
As it is part of Windows, there is not much else that you can do:
Runsfc /scannow
Perhaps over-doing it:Repair Install of Windows
(The above links are for Windows 10, so some adjustments for Windows 11 may be required.)
Apart from this, you could also signal the problem to Microsoft via the Feedback hub.
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