A List of Svchost Processes

• The Svchost process you see repeatedly in your task manager handles all of the services running on your computer and hosts them, as per its name. Unlike normal running applications, services start running silently when your operating system boots up. They still need an application, however, to host them. In your task manager, you might notice repeated instances of the Svchost process because the process replicates itself to manage another group of services. Although Svchost manages many services on your computer, a few of them stand out as the main services hosted by the process.

Windows Update

• The major player in your operating system's Svchost process happens to download and install updates from you when it finds them. Keeping your computer up to date, the Windows Update service retrieves data from Microsoft's update server and checks for updates that your computer needs to maintain itself secure, although it also gets updates to check for illegitimate copies of Windows installed on any specific computer. Other updates might consist of simple feature additions that make your computer's operation much smoother and more personalized.

Background Intelligent Transfer Service

• The Background Intelligent Transfer Service, also known as BITS, provides your Windows environments with the means to download files within the background from Windows Update or other Windows services using the idle bandwidth on your Internet connection. This service makes sure your Internet activities don't get interrupted by scheduling packets wisely. The service began appearing in Windows XP to accommodate for the messy update times seen in previous versions of Windows.

Print Spooler

• Your printing gets managed from the operating system through the Print Spooler service. When you start a printing job, your operating system forwards the requests for image printing to the printer through the spooler. When you cancel a job and the service does not eliminate the job, you need to restart the service for your printer to work correctly because the spooler's interface failed to send the "Stop" command to the printer. Through the service, you also have the ability to access your printer's properties and configure how the operating system sends printing instructions.