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Description of Svchost.exe in Windows XP

Each instance of Svchost process [you see in Task Manager] launches a list of services. Multiple instances of Svchost.exe can run at the same time. Four or five instances of svchost.exe is normal. If you want to see what services are run by each Svchost process:

For XP Professional, using the Tasklist command:

• Click Start, Run and type cmd
• Type tasklist /svc >c:\taskList.txt

The taskList.txt will contain the services list (launched by each Svchost process). Windows XP Home does not have tasklist.exe. See also Description of Svchost.exe in Windows XP
WARNING: There are viruses circulating in the internet which uses the same name as svchost.exe. The legit svchost.exe will be present in the %Windir%\System32 folder.

To spot the invalid ones, use an Anti-Virus software. Windows Task Manager does not list the full path of the file. In this case, you may use Process Explorer from Sysinternals, which gives complete command over the processes.
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