what is this stuff?

[Bill Sanderson]

These are likely all legitimate. Svchost.exe hosts other system processes,
and a number of instances are normal, because the hosted services run in
different security contexts.

ALG.exe relates to the Windows firewall, and wdfmgr.exe is a service related
to Media Player 10.

There are instances of viruses which use the executable name svchost.exe.
As far as I know, these are all well known to antivirus vendors.

These observations don't give any cause for concern--are there other reasons
you feel there might be something happening that you don't want?

 

[John]

Check out this site - they give a pretty good list with explanatiins for
processes running on your computer.

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/

 

[mike]

I am on adelphia powerlink and when I pull up the processes it shows
wdfmgr.exe as a local service, svchost.exe as a local service, svchost.exe
as a network service, alg.exe as a local service, and svchost.exe as system
twice in a row. I'm not familiar with these programs but I think svchost is
necessary. Is there a possibility that one or more of these was put there as
some kind of hack or spyware? Or is that normal for a network setup to look
like that. All the spyware scans come up negative.

 

[mike]

Thanks for the info and the link. I'm somewhat paranoid and like to have
all that info.

 

[Ron Kinner]

All harmless. wdfmgr is part of Windows Media Player 10.
svchost processes belong to Windows - usually 4 running on
an XP system. alg is the foundation process for the
firewall and internet connection sharing.

Ron