Svchost.exe – Host Process For Windows Services

What is svchost.exe?

Svchost.exe is a hosting process for windows services. What it means is that this windows process runs various windows services under svchost.exe name.

Svchost.exe problems

Since svchost.exe could be used to run multiple different windows services it is impossible to tell what caused it to crash just based on the process name. You will need to get more details how to figure out what happened and solve specific problems at svchost.exe errors page.

What is windows service?

Windows service is a program which runs continuously from operating system start to shutdown. Usually windows services do not interact with user and are responsible for various aspects like computer security, printing, internet connectivity, etc. Lots of windows services are running under svchost.exe process name. Here you can find full list of standard svchost.exe services and C# code to get list of svchost.exe services on your computer.

Svchost.exe location

svchost.exe process is located in %systemroot%\system32. Here is %SystemRoot% is a variable which defines location of Windows operating system. Usually it is c:\windows or c:\winnt and thus path above could be translated into c:\windows\system32.
You can find out value of this variable by launching “cmd.exe” and typing “echo %systemroot%” there.

File Extension Database to learn about different file extensions and ways to open them.
DLL File - extension of Windows library files
BIN File - extension for binary files
DAT File - extension for files with various data
RPMSG File - files with message secured by Rights-Managed Email Object Protocol