svchost.exe : What Are They & Why They Are Running Behind Your System [Explained]

Just from human nature, even the person with the best possible hardware configuration and the fastest system speed wants to make his PC faster. We do a lot of things/tweaks regularly only to make our PC even better. Users with a good command over System do those tweaks manually where others uses applications designed to optimize the system. If you wondering how to make your PC faster, try to read Ultimate Tips to Speed Up Your PC and Boost Performance and 10 Tips For Happy Computing. You can also check our review of free System Tool like Advanced System Care, CCleaner, Startup Master, iBoostUp,EaseUS CleanGenius, Tweak Me!, Wise Registry Cleaner, SlimCleaner Now if open your Task Manger anytime, you might as well get frustrated by seeing how many valuable system resource are consumed by some process called svchost! In plain eye, those seems as useless as garbage but as horrifying as hell. But wait! Do not end those processes without digging inside them! svchost isn’t as useless as they seemed to be, in fact they are some processes that needs to be running to make system functional. To find out more about svchost and why they are on the task manager consuming so much space, read more.

All Microsoft operating systems use the Dynamic-Link Libraries or DLLs for important services, which are responsible for internal tasks of the system. Virtually all Windows programs needs to access to at least one of these DLL files in system folders to perform their action. The problem is that DLL files are not executable and this is where the svchost.exe process intercepts. As the name says, it’s just a Service Host or a Host that handles services. The function of this executable process it to be the inter-communicative interface between DLLs of Windows services and other components of the system and run them when needed. In a single line, it is not possible for the system to open an individual file for all DLLs loaded by the system. Therefore, each case svchost.exe handles a particular group of DLLs. For example, a single svchost process for managing managing Network also makes sure that the workspace is safe for usage.

So, should you terminate those svchost processes? It depends. Many Windows services are essential to its operation, or even to maintain the security of the system intact. For example, from one of these svchost.exe processes, one handles the functions to control native Firewall and if you terminate that processes then you may leaving your computer vulnerable to attacks from across the web. However, as many of you already know, many services performed by the system are simply useless for some user profiles. Therefore, you should turn them off completely to gain performance to make sure that the service is really just taking least space in memory and isn’t wasting any system resource. If you are not seeing svchost.exe in the task manager, then you may have forgot to check Show processes from all user option. Mark it to get all svchost.exe process. Some malicious programs are able to disguise themselves as part of the system, naming their processes as svchost.exe and confusing the user. A good antivirus with the latest definitions, usually detect such threats without problems, but you can also find out if a lawsuit is legitimate or suspicious.

Now how to find out more about one individual svchost like which services it is controlling and more. If you open the Windows Task Manager (via Ctrl+Shift+Delete keyboard shortcut or by right clicking on the taskbar and then selecting Start Task Manager) and explore the Processes tab, you will see that there are several svchost.exe opened with a generic description. The procedure to find out what each one does is simple:

• Click the right mouse button on one of the svchost.exe and click Go to Service(s).
  
• Momentarily, Task Manager will switch to the Services tab showing all services which are run and managed by the selected svchost.exe process.
• If you believe that any of the services shown is useless to be kept running, select it and then right click and select Stop Service.
  

WARNING: Again we are saying that we do not recommend stopping services unless you DO KNOW what you are doing, because they can be vital for the operation of other programs or even the system itself, elsewise, you will need to restart the service.

The above procedure does not work in Windows XP, but you can download programs like Process Explorer which provide the ability to check in detail the processes running on your PC and stop them if necessary. Process Explorer and other programs of the category can also be used in later versions of Windows such as Windows Vista and 7, but these versions have built-in facilities so you do not require to use additional software, unless you prefer more specific tools than native to the system.