A crappy Windows 11 driver is killing HP laptops – and owners are angry

Owners of some HP laptops are complaining that after upgrading to Windows 11, the HP Hotkey UWP Service, which runs in the background, starts taking up huge amounts of memory, effectively rendering their machines useless.

Several HP customers have taken to HP’s support forums to complain about the issue. The HP Hotkey UWP Service is a driver that lets you use the Fn key on your laptop keyboard with the F1 – F0 keys, to perform certain tasks, such as turning audio volume up and down. It starts when Windows boots on a HP laptop, and users have been complaining that while in Windows 10 it would take up minimal memory, in Windows 11 it is taking up a huge amount, with one user saying that it’s using a huge 49GB of the laptop’s 64GB RAM.

That’s obviously a sign that something is amiss, as no app should take up that much memory, especially a relatively simple service for keyboard shortcuts, and points toward an issue such as a memory leak with the Windows 11 implementation of the HP Hotkey UWP Service.

This issue isn’t affecting all HP laptops – we’re writing this story on an HP Elite Dragonfly G2 with Windows 11 installed, and HP Hotkey UWP Service is using just 2MB of memory – but judging by the responses to the post on the HP support forum, there are plenty of people who are struggling with this issue.

Analysis: Where is HP?

The thread about HP Hotkey UWP Service taking up huge amounts of memory was started in July 2021, but people are still complaining about this issue in 2022, with little sign that HP is aware of the issue, or if it’s working on a fix.

In fact, the latest message on the forum concerning the issue is particularly damming. After reporting that their ZBook 15 G3 is suffering from having 100% of its RAM used up, the clearly frustrated user writes “HP  — where are you?.”

Worryingly, this user is also on Windows 10, which means this problem could also affect people who haven’t upgraded to Windows 11, though the majority of people complaining about this issue appear to be on the newer operating system.

The fact that the company has been silent on this matter is concerning and is only fuelling more anger about the issue. Dodgy drivers and software updates happen all the time, but as long as companies are transparent about those issues and clear about what steps are being taken to address them, customers will normally understand.

So, the company needs to get on top of this problem ASAP before the anger gets worse. We’ve reached out to HP for comment about this situation and to get clarity on what it’s doing to address this issue. We’ll update this story as soon as we hear back.

In the meantime, it appears that some people have found that rolling back the LAN/WLAN/WWAN Switching and Hot Key Service driver (found in the Device Manager) to version 8.10.14.1 can help.

Reinstalling the driver (again, through Device Manager) may also help. Preventing the driver from loading with Windows is another option, though it’s not ideal. Hopefully, HP will issue an official fix soon.