Questions linger on the Svchost.exe bug

By Scott Dunn

The problems discussed in our June 21 issue surrounding svchost.exe, a component of Microsoft Update that periodically consumes 100% of CPU time, raised questions about the related files that it touches.

You can get more info on these files — if you know where to look.

Multiple instances of Svchost.exe are normal

Following my June 21 story on the Svchost.exe problems, many readers, including David Ward, wrote in with a question like this one:

• “I took a look at my Task Manager to find that I have six Svchost.exe processes running. Is this right? Three are for System, two are for Network Service, and one is for Local Service. The highest memory usage is not more than 32,124 K, which is in System. I don’t know if I should be concerned.”
  

Yes, this is very normal. Svchost.exe is a component of Windows that runs services (processes like audio, fax, network functions, and much more). Multiple instances of Svchost.exe typically run at the same time, each instance loading one or more services. Unfortunately, Task Manager doesn’t show which service(s) each instance is running.

You can find more information on Svchost.exe in Microsoft’s Knowledge Base article 314056. To see what services normally run on your system, click Start, Run, type Services.msc, and press Enter.

How to check Windows Update’s version number

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