Last night before I turned off my computer, I noticed it said that i could install some updates. Sometimes it freezes, and my computer stays on all night, so I decided I would do it tomorrow. But now everytime I turn on my computer, after about 2 minutes, I get a “svchost.exe - Application Error”.

Just this morning, the exact same error came up on my computer. I’m running XP Media Center — latest. I always leave my computer on and no updates have been installed in the last 3-4 weeks. On a weird note, somehow it lost reference to my sound card, although it showed up in Device manager, my system (media player and Windows) did not recognize any sound card being installed. I rebooted the computer and once again got audio, but then less than 2 minutes later, svchost.exe “0×745f2780″ referenced memory at Task Manager and I was unable to shutdown.

What is it?

Generic Host Process for Win32 Services - it is an integral part of Windows system. It manages 32-bit DLLs and other services. At startup checks the services portion of the registry to construct a list of services that it needs to load. It cannot be stopped or restarted manually. (more information: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314056)

One day Microsoft has decided to run more software functionality from a DLL interface. However DLLs are unable to launch themselves and require at least one executable program, i.e. svchost.exe, is needed to bridge between the library process and the operating system.

Why are there so many svchost.exe processes running?

The process runs as a request by DLL’s. This can be a legitimate request from your computer’s system processes or any other DLL. More often than not, it is always a Microsoft process request, but it can be used by other software. Most of these requests are not needed for computer operation but may be needed for such things as updates to programs and operating systems.
This process can be used by any other program on your computer, so it may from time to time be used for not-so-good intentions; but most of the time, traffic to the Internet can be allowed safely from the svchost.exe.
It is essential that you grant access to this service if you want these services to function properly on your computer. Svchost.exe is a very common program on your computer. Just open your task manager and click on the Processes Tab, there you will find several instances of it running providing a common service to any number of applications. One service would be for audio, another for multimedia. That’s the way Windows works, it provides services to the applications that you have installed on it.

What can I do?

So now that you know what it is you may be asking what can I do about it? Experts recommend that you can help by trimming down unneeded services by disabling or stopping the services that don’t absolutely need to be running. In addition if you are noticing very heavy CPU usage on a single svchost.exe instance you can restart the services running under that instance. The biggest problem can be identifying what services are being run on a particular svchost.exe instance but that can be dealt with.

Run Task Manager (right click on the taskbar, or use Ctrl+Shift+Esc shortcut) and switch to Processes tab Then choose one, right click on it and click Go to service(s)

This will show you services tab and you can will see the real name under the Description column. This way you can choose to disable the service if you don’t want it running.

Very handy tool: svchost viewer

Tiny (48kB) and do not require any installation (check it out here). After first run you will get a message

After a while you will see all svchost services with description, memory usage, service name, program path and basic information if service is started, can be stopped and paused.

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