what's svchost?

Question

a message pops up on my computer sometimes and says Genetic 32Win process something needs to be terminated...
or something along the lines of that


and it includes svchost.exe.

in my windows task manager it's taking up most of my cpu %

what is it svchost?
what does it do?
can i end it?

what can i do to prevent that message?

Answer 1

The Svchost.exe file is located in the %SystemRoot%\System32 folder. At startup, Svchost.exe checks the services part of the registry to construct a list of services that it must load. Multiple instances of Svchost.exe can run at the same time. Each Svchost.exe session can contain a grouping of services. Therefore, separate services can run, depending on how and where Svchost.exe is started. This grouping of services allows for better control and easier debugging.

Svchost.exe groups are identified in the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Svchost
Each value under this key represents a separate Svchost group and appears as a separate instance when you are viewing active processes. Each value is a REG_MULTI_SZ value and contains the services that run under that Svchost group. Each Svchost group can contain one or more service names that are extracted from the following registry key, whose Parameters key contains a ServiceDLL value:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Service
To view the list of services that are running in Svchost:
1. Click Start on the Windows taskbar, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type CMD, and then press ENTER.
3. Type Tasklist /SVC, and then press ENTER.