I seem to find this problem almost every day now.   I turn on the TV, hit a button on the PC to disable the screen blank, and find the photo screen saver frozen.    If I hit another key and wait long enough, I might get back to the MCE menu, or I might only get half way there.   It almost seems like it takes +30secs to process each remote button press.   Hitting C-A-D gets me to the option screen (after 30 seconds) but it acts like there isn't enough CPU to move the mouse.    If I log-in via RDP and kill the Windows Desktop Manager running on the TV screen, everything is happy and works fine.    Looking at task manager prior to the kill, WDM isn't taking a huge amount of CPU (Idle is 90% or so) and RDP performance is fine.    Nothing interesting in the event log.    Any ideas?    My wife isn't a big fan of the RDP/Task Manager/Kill work-around.

Complete config info in my signature.

I don't run the desktop window manager.

1) Right click on desktop -> Personalize -> Theme -> Windows 7 Basic

2) WinBauble -> type: advanced system settings -> view advanced system settings -> advanced tab -> Performance settings button -> Visual Effects tab -> adjust for best performance -> recheck the few effects you want on the bottom like smooth scrolling/font smoothing/use styles

3) WinBauble -> type: services -> (right click runas admin) Services -> Desktop Window Manager -> properties -> Startup type: Manual

4) WinBauble -> type: turn windows features on or off -> Turn Windows Features On or Off -> unckeck Windows Gadget Platform

5) Restart Windows

TheReaper

I don't run the desktop window manager.

Hmm, coming from the X Window world, I assumed the Desktop Window Manager did what it does there (IE: Window management).    Obviously, that's not so since I turned it off and can still move my windows.   I suspect this will do the trick, but what functionality do I lose by doing this?

I suspect there are a couple other useless services running.   Can you post a list of  (or pointer to) what else you've turned off.

The real window manager is built into windows, and is not a separate service yet (I don't think). The Desktop Window Manager is mainly responsible for eye candy. It inserts itself so that programs draw to it, instead of the presentation (desktop) space directly. The DWM does aero glass, 3D effects, flipping, window thumbnails and I think it is supposed to rescale non-dpi aware windows.

The only other service I have turned off so far, is Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service. I don't do any media streaming, on other computers I access my content directly using Home Group libraries (file sharing) [note: I had to disable this service to stop it].

 Ahh, that definitely fits with the problem I was seeing.  I suspect this will clean it up.   Thanks!