svchost? necessary?

[be_patient]

hey its no big deal but i am currently running XPSP2, i am just trying 2 clean it and have it running as smooth as possible.
when i open the task manager and check my processes i have noticed that i have 4 different svchost(s) running. Each one can take up a bit of usage at times, i was just wondering two things...

1. What do they do?
2. Do I need them?

thanks in advance,
be patient

 

[Nodsu]

Svchost is a host process for system services. Most likely any of these svchost processes holds several system-critical services so you had better not touch them. Stop and disable any useless system services in the services management tool instead.

Of course, it could also be some malware disguised as svchost, so use some advanced process tool like Process Explorer from Sysinternals to see whether those svchosts are running from the right location (system32\svchost.exe)

 

[be_patient]

i thought they were necessary.... thanks for that.