The Rock | xTended

Svchost.exe is a generic process name for Windows services that run from Microsoft DLLs (dynamically linked libraries). Each of those instances of svchost.exe in the process lists actually represents a group of services that each process is managing. With Process Explorer, it’s easy to see which services each process manages, and stop them one by one to see which is the CPU culprit.

The first thing to do is to determine which of the active svchost.exe processes is causing the slowdown. Fire up Process Explorer, and click on the CPU column header to sort the list of processes by processor usage. A list of processes, sorted from most processor intensive to least intensive, is displayed. When the computer stalls, switch over to Process Explorer and see which running process is causing the crunch.

Often users will see about 20 different services represented by one process (see svchost.exe example in Process Manager above.) How are they supposed to know which of those is causing my computer to slow down? Well, luckily I’ve played around a bit with nearly all of the services in the list and found my biggest problem: Task Scheduler.

Task Scheduler is a Windows service in the NT family of operating systems that lets users schedule programs or automated jobs that can be performed at specific times or regular intervals. Since I’m working on a CNET company PC, there are a lot of corporate controls that I haven’t manually configured. For example, security scans are managed on a networkwide IT level.

Source: Peter Butler, Senior Content Manager, Download.com