Articles - Continued

Svchost

For pretty much any computer user who has looked at their task manager box, they will notice something called ‘svchost.exe’.  What exactly is this and is it important?

Svchost.exe is the name of a file in the MS Windows operating system. It is short for Service Host. It is located in the Windows-System32 folder.  Because it does perform as a host, it has the ability to gather numerous services at once and allow them to run in a common environment which is quite efficient because it minimizes boot up time by getting rid of the processes of running numerous independent services in their own allocated memory locations. As there is an assortment of Windows services having non-similar requirements in regards to access of the system, this explains the multiple occurances of svchost.exe, with four to five occurrences being normal.

Problems can arise, however as there are computer viruses which go by the same name. Legitimate svchost.exe resides in the System32 folder, as mentioned above whereas a virus doesn’t.

Some people make the mistake of deleting svchost thinking it is a virus when indeed it may not be. On versions of Windows 2000 and newer, it is not and if it is deleted your PC will not work properly. However it is good to be aware that a virus does exist under the name ‘scvhost’. Notice the only difference in the name is the c and v are transposed. Very deceptive, I would say. With numerous process names and technical terms being associated with computers nowadays, one can find information about these things by going to legitimate websites on the internet and performing some research. The Microsoft website is a good example where one can get a lot of information about processes and services that are running on one’s computer.

Some good ideas to help with problems surrounding this and other computer issues include:

Installing and using on a regular basis, a registry cleaning product, such as RegCure. It is an excellent product for solving windows registry related issues.

Another key component of helping keep system problems to a minimum would be to install an anti-spyware product. An excellent choice is Paretologic’s Xoftspy. Xoftspy has real-time spyware blocking capabilities and a huge spyware definitions database to keep your computer protected against spyware and adware threats. In addition it is always recommended to use an anti virus software and to check for updates and perform scans on a regular basis as one should do with anti-spyware software as well.