Get rid of muliplte instances of svchost.exe?

[Tim]

Why does svchost.exe pop up more than once in Task Manager, sometimes taking 20 MB or more of memory for at least one of the copies? I have Windows XP Home on my main computer, and am tired of seeing it running 3 or more times. I've reloaded XP Home on many other computers, and it happens a lot.

What is svchost.exe anyhow, and do we really need it running even once?

[Kwitko]

No, don't get rid of svchost. It's a vital part of the OS. The only time it's a danger is if it's not running from the System32 folder.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314056

[djshowdown]

try using spybot s&d to see if all three are running from the correct location

you will need to switch to advance mode and go to tools

in there will be the startup bit. when you click on different processes it can tell you where they are being run from and what they do

it could be that one or more is actually some sort of spyware so check it out