Svchost

Svchost

Anyone who's opened the task manager in any version of Windows has seen the process “svchost.exe” at one point or another. What's more confusing is that Svchost is usually found to have more than one instance! What are they all doing there and just how much of my precious memory are they wasting?

Svchosts usually have more than one entry the reason for is that they are used to host multiple services within one process. This helps to actually conserve memory in your system by having one process govern many. As in Windows Update, the Event Log, Audio Services etc.

To identify what each is used for :-

Windows XP: Open a Command Prompt and without the quotes type “Cd C:\”( Do note the space between), then at C:\ type without the quotes “ tasklist /svc” in order to arrive at the root of C:\ This throws up a list of what processes are running under Svchost.

Windows Vista: Open Task Manager, click on the “processes” tab Ensure the checkbox that says “Show processes from all users” is checked\ticked. Right-Click on any of the Svchost processes and select “Go to Services”. Quite a List  