Svchost.exe stops desktop from showin

[Cpt.Samir]

Well i seem to have a prob, i am running windows xp 64bit and i have several svchost.exe running, but when i restart, i get into my pw screen and i type it in, first it takes a while to get to my wallpaper, but than it just sits there. so i have to ctrl+alt+del to bring up task manager than process and go by mem usage and its the 3rd one down called svchost, and i end task and than my desktop loads and all the drivers and such, i have tried to turn off everything in the boot in msconfig but that does not work. Any ideas how i can figure out what is causing this without reformatting?? Thanks

 

[LookinAround]

It's normal to have several svchost processes running. (They often run a group of Windows services). You can learn more about what svchost is doing (and what services it runs) see this thread

 

[kimsland]

If you want to know what is really running under SVCHOST.EXE, go to a command prompt (Start->Run-> cmd, note in Vista right click and select run as Administrator) and run:
tasklist /svc

Checking in Task Manager in Vista

You can right-click on a particular svchost.exe process, and then choose the "Go to Service" option.

(Xp & Vista)
You can use the excellent Process Explorer utility from Microsoft/Sysinternals to see what services are running as a part of a svchost.exe process.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

You can also go to Start-> Run-> services.msc
And check out all the services running

 

[LookinAround]

one cool advantage of Process Explorer in cases like these is in addition to usual
- list of processes and process activity
- info on services running in a process

rt click Process->Properties->Threads to get a list of threads and thread activity running with a single Process (sort of like going from a process list to zooming into sub-processes within a process) to get an even better idea of activity.

Hopefully then use the .dll listed in a thread's address (you;ll see in Threads tab) and match it to a service dll you'll find under Services tab to map high thread activity to a particular service.

EDIT: Not a fool-proof method, but can often help