Why do i have 5 SVCHOST.EXE???

[Jose B.]

yes i wa wondering why do i have 5, yes 5 svchost.exe's
running in my task manger under processes. i tryed to end
1 of thoeses and it poped up a box telling me the pc will
shut down in 1 mins, it looks like the pop box of when i
caught the blaster virus 1 month ago before i removed it
then reformated and installed my OS. BUT i scaned my pc
now with updated nortons and used the removal tools and
nothing ws found. i was guessing this is what the program
does if i try to end it?? please let me know before i end
up reinstalling my sysytem again incase of a virus thanks!

 

[David Jones]

svchost.exe is a "holder" process for system services.
Because some services need to be separate, and some use
different "service accounts" to run, there will be
multiple svchost.exe instances running.

The following article has more technical information:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=314056