Glossary
Desktop Activity Moderator (DAM)
A Windows kernel driver that suspends or throttles desktop apps during connected (Modern) standby, and keeps BAM-style per-user records in the SYSTEM hive.
The Desktop Activity Moderator is a kernel-mode driver that Microsoft introduced for devices supporting connected standby. According to Microsoft Learn, it is loaded at boot only when the hardware supports connected standby, suspends desktop processes in interactive sessions and throttles session-0 processes while the screen is off, and is not present on server SKUs.
On Windows 10 and 11 it keeps per-user records under Services\dam\State\UserSettings\<SID> in the SYSTEM hive, in the same format as BAM. The key is usually empty on desktops. See DAM forensics explained.