codex - 💡(How to fix) Fix Windows Codex Desktop spawns powershell.exe every second for full process polling, causing high CPU usage

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

26.527.31326

What subscription do you have?

Pro

What platform is your computer?

Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.26200.0 x64

What issue are you seeing?

Codex Desktop repeatedly spawns short-lived powershell.exe children under the Codex.exe GUI process to run full-machine CIM/WMI scans over Win32_Process and Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_Process.

In a fresh 30.05s measurement, I observed 23 PowerShell/pwsh processes, approximately 0.77/sec, consuming about 48.95 CPU-seconds total. Roughly 1.6 logical cores of sustained load from this recent change to how Codex monitors apps.

Confirmed child command examples: powershell.exe -NoProfile -NonInteractive -Command "... Get-CimInstance Win32_Process | Select-Object ProcessId,ParentProcessId | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 2"

powershell.exe -NoProfile -NonInteractive -Command "... Get-CimInstance Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_Process ... Get-CimInstance Win32_Process ... CommandLine,WorkingSetSize,..."

What steps can reproduce the bug?

019e7fe2-7262-7c50-bbbc-0a374d0db752

1. Run Codex Desktop on Windows.
2. Watch child processes under Codex.exe using Task Manager, System Informer, or Get-CimInstance Win32_Process.
3. When active, Codex.exe repeatedly spawns powershell.exe children running Get-CimInstance Win32_Process / Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfProc_Process.

I do not yet have a deterministic trigger; the loop appears intermittent or state-dependent but happens while conversations are ongoing.

What is the expected behavior?

Codex Desktop should not spawn PowerShell repeatedly for full-machine process polling. Process tracking should be throttled, non-overlapping, scoped to Codex-owned process trees, or implemented through a persistent/native helper.

Additional information

This appears to be Codex Desktop app behavior, not the standalone Codex CLI. The parent process is the packaged Windows app Codex.exe, and the likely source is Desktop process-manager code in app.asar.

This did not happen before the updates at the end of last week (~28th/29th).