Good evening! You were right! The memory consumption spike was no longer observed.

Alas, I was finally able to eliminate this theory using Process Explorer's Set Processor Affinity feature.

With no affinity set, Windows spreads the workload across multiple cores. This made it difficult to determine which core WorkShelf was running on, even while repeatedly mousing over the dock.

After restricting WorkShelf to a single logical processor, however, all its processing remained on that core. This made it possible to confirm that the roughly 25% usage of a single CPU core while idle is real.

Switching the affinity between a P-core and an E-core made no significant difference.

I also tried profiling WorkShelf using WPR and WPA - Windows Performance Recorder and Windows Performance Analyzer - but that did not help either, because WPA was unable to load and resolve the symbols from WorkShelf's PDB file.

This is EXTREMELY frustrating... so close and yet so far!

New Betas of v26.8 (Beta 5) are out:

Winstep Xtreme beta:
https://www.winstep.net/xtreme-beta.zip

Nexus Ultimate beta:
https://www.winstep.net/ultimate-beta.zip

Nexus free beta:
https://www.winstep.net/nexus-beta.zip

This is a beta and MUST be installed ON TOP of a full v26.6 OR LATER installation. Do NOT uninstall anything first, just exit all running Winstep applications and run the beta setup file.

There is no need to backup your settings first, but it does not hurt if you do either.

###

Lots of changes, fixes and additions since the last beta.

Added new Dark Mode (Midnight) UI mode, new indicator styles for grouped task icons, increased maximum icon spacing in docks to 64 pixels, added optional Windows 11 animation (faster, snappier) for the window live preview thumbnails, added "Launch once for multiple dropped files" setting to the Item Properties dialog, fixed major bug with the multi-monitor profiles after hardening in the previous beta which would cause the monitor list not to be refreshed the second time a display change occurred with possible application crash, tasklist on a dock only updating every 10 seconds if "fast systray refresh" was enabled, plus a ton of other improvements, changes and fixes.

Full list of changes in v26.8 HERE.

The update to beta version 26.8 (Beta 5) went smoothly. The Dark Mode (Midnight) interface theme is now available. Thank you very much!
Windows 11 Pro 26H1.
And one more question: Wanda the Fish. There are currently four animated fish species. Are you planning to add more? My child loves the animations! The fish look so realistic!

Unfortunately, no.

The lists below contain the full set of changes over v26.6 in this beta, organized by category for easier reference.

Changes applicable to Nexus Ultimate and Nexus can be extrapolated from the corresponding WorkShelf changes.


WorkShelf v26.8 Beta 5

This beta includes a substantial number of new features, improvements and fixes, with particular focus on task handling, PWAs, Windows 11 compatibility, multi-monitor behavior and resource usage.

NEW FEATURES & IMPROVEMENTS

General

• Updated Russian language file.
• Updated WorkShelf User Guide.
• Improved the layout and visual presentation of the Winstep Update Manager.
• Added new Dark Mode (Midnight) UI mode.

Docks, Shelves & Drawers

• Renamed and moved the mouseover opening settings from the Sub-Docks dialog to the Behavior tab's More Options dialog to reflect that they also apply to Grid Stacks, Launch Pads, and folder menus.
  
• Folder shortcuts configured to open as menus in their Item Properties dialog now also open on mouseover when the corresponding option is enabled.
  
• Added an option to the Auto-Hide settings on the Behavior tab to keep the tab strip stationary when collapsing or expanding a floating Shelf or Drawer.
  
• Added a warning when enabling full-width spanning with a tile-based dock theme, explaining that the option requires a single continuous dock background.
  
• Increased the maximum horizontal and vertical dock icon spacing from 16 to 64 pixels.

Tasks & Window Management

• Improved CPU usage when updating the list of running applications by caching previously resolved information.
  
• Added new stacked-icons and no-indicator options for grouped task icons, in addition to the existing numeric instance counter.
  
• Added a troubleshooting option to force tasklist polling once per second when Windows shell notifications are delayed or unreliable.
  
• Added a Windows 11-style animation option for task window and menu bitmap file thumbnail previews, featuring a faster, snappier animation. The default is the Windows 11 style on Windows 11 and the Windows 7 style on earlier versions.

PWA Support

• Added support for Vivaldi PWAs.
• Added default PWA icon.

System Tray & Modules

• Optimized the audio tray icon to cache the active audio endpoint and use system notifications for device changes, eliminating unnecessary device enumeration every second.
  
• Added Wi-Fi signal strength display to the network tray icon when permitted by the Windows location privacy settings.
  
• Added per-connection bandwidth usage information to the Net Meter's Active Connections dialog.
  
• Added a text-size setting (Small, Medium or Large) to the Net Meter's Active Connections dialog.
  
• Updated the Restore Wallpaper internal command icon to display the wallpaper thumbnail inside a monitor for a more polished appearance.

Alarm Manager

• Added support for US and ISO system date formats in Alarm Manager, including locale-independent date validation.

File Drag & Drop

• Added a "Launch once for multiple dropped files" option to the Item Properties dialog, allowing all files dropped onto an application shortcut to be passed together in a single launch instead of launching the application separately for each file.

FIXES

Themes & User Interface

• Fixed an issue where opening the Themes tab in first-run or factory-reset setups would delete the default dock's All Programs Grid Stack target, leaving the dock's shortcut non-functional (build 1895).
  
• Fixed an issue related to writing changes atomically where Shelves using individual non-global themes would revert to a generic theme after restarting (build 1894).
  
• Improved readability of red warning text in the User Interface Dark mode (Gray) theme.
  
• Fixed some message boxes appearing centered on the screen instead of on their parent dialog or window.

Docks, Shelves, Grid Stacks & Folder Menus

• Fixed an issue where a Shelf, Drawer, or Grid Stack could appear unresponsive to mouseovers while a folder menu was open.
  
• Fixed collapsed shelves being incorrectly resizable by dragging their edges, causing the shelf body to appear while remaining logically collapsed.
  
• Toggling the "Span the full screen width when docked" option no longer resets the docking screen edge.
  
• Fixed docks with automatically reduced icon sizes briefly "flashing back" to their original icon size when reset.
  
• Fixed sub-docks, Grid Stacks and folder menus unnecessarily closing and reopening when auto-drop down is enabled and the mouse is moved back over their parent icon.
  
• Fixed sub-docks sometimes jumping to an adjacent monitor when repositioned near a monitor edge.

Tasks, UWP Apps & PWAs

• Fixed normal Chromium-based browser windows (Chrome, Brave) being incorrectly detected as PWAs with per-user installations.
  
• Fixed grouped PWA task items displaying the browser name instead of the correct application name, such as YouTube.
  
• Fixed cloaked and uncloaked UWP window notifications sometimes being associated with the wrong window, preventing the task list from updating correctly.
  
• Improved handling of cloaked and uncloaked windows so UWP apps are added to or removed from the task list at the correct time.
  
• Fixed unresolved UWP app windows being temporarily added to the task list with a generic icon before their application identity was available.
  
• Fixed potential excessive tasklist polling when shell notifications were unavailable.
  
• Fixed task icons in docks taking up to ten seconds to appear or disappear under Windows 11 when Enable fast system tray refresh was enabled.
  
• Fixed a "The group or resource is not in the correct state to perform the requested operation" error when dropping multiple files onto UWP application shortcuts.

Multi-Monitor & Reserved Screen Areas

• Fixed an issue that could cause multi-monitor profiles to be applied incorrectly on systems where the monitors were not horizontally aligned.
  
• Fixed stale monitor handles after returning from a low-power state causing incorrect task filtering per monitor when switching from grouped tasks to individual task icons until the application was restarted.
  
• Fixed an issue where restarting or crashing Explorer could cause reserved screen areas and appbars to be positioned incorrectly.

System Tray & Resource Usage

• Fixed the system tray timer continuing to run even after the last tray instance had been removed, causing unnecessary background polling and resource usage.
  
• Fixed occasional excessive idle CPU usage under Windows 11 by replacing continuous Core Audio device polling for the volume tray icon with device-change notifications.
  
• Fixed modules inside Grid Stacks or nested sub-docks being incorrectly detected as active despite their root dock, shelf or drawer being disabled, preventing unused resources from being properly released.

Alarm Manager & Localization

• Fixed incorrect font rendering in the Alarm Manager on systems using non-Western locales.
  
• A badly formatted date in the Edit Alarm dialog no longer blocks the Cancel and Today buttons.
  
• Fixed incorrect Italian spoken-time phrasing, hour/minute ordering, and time-of-day announcements.
  
• Fixed the default Disk Meter desktop module translating the Read, Write, Free and Temp labels twice, which could add already translated text to language files as new entries.

Modules & Item Properties

• Fixed an issue where changing the module type in the Item Properties dialog did not properly restore the corresponding argument field, such as the drive list for Drive modules or the time zone for Clock modules.
  
• Fixed the Next Desktop Background internal command no longer working under Windows 11 by using the native Windows wallpaper slideshow API on Windows 8 and later.

Networking

• Improved GeoIP and HTTPS socket handling, including more reliable lookup-state tracking, timeout cleanup, and reconnection logic.

Backup & Restore

• Voice and Sound theme folders were not being properly validated when restoring from a backup.

###

NextSTART v26.8 Beta 5

This beta includes a range of new features, improvements and fixes, with particular focus on task handling, PWAs, Windows 11 compatibility, multi-monitor behavior and resource usage.

NEW FEATURES & IMPROVEMENTS

General

• Updated Russian language file.
• Updated NextSTART User Guide.
• Improved the layout and visual presentation of the Winstep Update Manager.
• Added new Dark Mode (Midnight) UI mode.

Taskbar & Window Management

• Improved CPU usage when updating the list of running applications by caching previously resolved information.
  
• Added new stacked-icons and no-indicator options for grouped task icons, in addition to the existing numeric instance counter.
  
• Added a troubleshooting option to force tasklist polling once per second when Windows shell notifications are delayed or unreliable.
  
• Added a Windows 11-style animation option for task window and menu bitmap file thumbnail previews, featuring a faster, snappier animation. The default is the Windows 11 style on Windows 11 and the Windows 7 style on earlier versions.
  
• The NextSTART Quick Launch area now animates as it expands and collapses.

WorkShelf Integration

• WorkShelf sub-docks can now also be accessed from NextSTART hotspots, Quick Launch buttons and menus. To add one, select it from the Add > Docks submenu (sub-docks will be marked as such).

PWA Support

• Added support for Vivaldi PWAs.
• Added default PWA icon.

System Tray

• Optimized the audio tray icon to cache the active audio endpoint and use system notifications for device changes, eliminating unnecessary device enumeration every second.
  
• Added Wi-Fi signal strength display to the network tray icon when permitted by the Windows location privacy settings.
  
• Updated the Restore Wallpaper internal command icon to display the wallpaper thumbnail inside a monitor for a more polished appearance.

FIXES

Tasks, UWP Apps & PWAs

• Fixed normal Chromium-based browser windows (Chrome, Brave) being incorrectly detected as PWAs with per-user installations.
  
• Fixed the icon of grouped PWA task instances not being displayed properly in the taskbar at icon sizes of 32x32 or smaller.
  
• Fixed grouped PWA task items displaying the browser name instead of the correct application name, such as YouTube.
  
• Fixed cloaked and uncloaked UWP window notifications sometimes being associated with the wrong window, preventing the task list from updating correctly.
  
• Improved handling of cloaked and uncloaked windows so UWP apps are added to or removed from the task list at the correct time.
  
• Fixed unresolved UWP app windows being temporarily added to the task list with a generic icon before their application identity was available.
  
• Fixed potential excessive tasklist polling when shell notifications were unavailable.

Multi-Monitor, Appbars & Reserved Screen Areas

• Fixed an issue that could cause multi-monitor profiles to be applied incorrectly on systems where the monitors were not horizontally aligned.
  
• Fixed the NextSTART taskbar sometimes not being properly repositioned when reserved screen areas changed.
  
• Fixed stale monitor handles after returning from a low-power state causing incorrect task filtering per monitor when switching from grouped tasks to individual task icons until the application was restarted.
  
• Fixed an issue where restarting or crashing Explorer could cause reserved screen areas and appbars to be positioned incorrectly.

System Tray & Resource Usage

• Fixed the system tray timer continuing to run even after the last tray instance had been removed, causing unnecessary background polling and resource usage.
  
• Fixed occasional excessive idle CPU usage under Windows 11 by replacing continuous Core Audio device polling for the volume tray icon with device-change notifications.

Windows & User Interface

• Improved readability of red warning text in the User Interface Dark mode (Gray) theme.
  
• Fixed the Next Desktop Background internal command no longer working under Windows 11 by using the native Windows wallpaper slideshow API on Windows 8 and later.

Just added a new "Clear Temporary Files" internal command.

This came about because I'm regularly forced to manually clean the contents of the Windows and current user's Temp folders. Many applications leave behind a ton of temporary files and folders, and over time they can end up consuming a surprising amount of disk space.

My favorite culprit is Office Click-to-Run. You can't simply kill it, otherwise Microsoft Office applications stop working properly, but while it's running it constantly creates and writes to log files in the Temp folders. I tried everything I could think of to stop it from doing that, but nothing worked.

Then it occurred to me that cleaning temporary files is exactly the sort of thing that should be done automatically on a schedule, so I never have to remember to do it again.

Winstep applications already include the built-in Alarm Manager which, besides displaying reminders, can also be used to launch applications or execute internal commands. All that was missing was an internal command to actually perform the cleanup.

And so I created one.

When run manually, Clear Temporary Files reports how many files and folders were deleted and how much disk space was freed. When run from the Alarm Manager, it operates silently according to whatever schedule you choose.

I hope this is as useful to you guys as it will be to me.

Wow...just wow.
I wish other dev's without naming any, took as much pride in ensuring that everything worked as intended and not only fixed bugs, but ensure the new stuff isn't released in a state that needs production fixes perpetually. I hear nightmare stories regularly from friends that are gamers on the state of a lot of what is out there.
Amazing hard work.

Thanks Andrew, much appreciated.