Just How Many Generic Host Processes Does One Person Need?
September 1, 2013 1:34 AM   Subscribe

So I'm checking my process explorer and I'll be - but I've got NINE host processes running. Why? Are they all necessary? Is this suspicious? All I have is a pen tablet, browser, AV and ISP going. How do I delve further to investigate? The only reason I'm looking into it is because out of the blue my ISP is majorly lagging and this is just in the last 2 days. SOMETHING is on my tail and I want it off. Thanks for any heads up.
posted by watercarrier to Computers & Internet (5 answers total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Windows is such a paragon of fine design, this lack of process naming is one example. You will need to find out what exactly they are to decide if they are good or bad for you. Does any of this help?
posted by epo at 1:54 AM on September 1, 2013


I have 13. I'm fairly certain this is a normal state of affairs. What you really should be looking out for is whether they are eating up a lot of CPU and/or memory. Windows can page stuff out to disk if there's memory pressure, and if the process is just waiting for something to happen, it won't take up CPU cycles.

See also this explanation from an actual Microsoft engineer.
posted by Aleyn at 2:12 AM on September 1, 2013 [3 favorites]


This guy has a set of detailed process listings for Microsoft systems. It details what they all do and most importantly, which can safely be disabled. It requires you to get your hands dirty but is invaluable if resources are an issue.

However if your network connection has started being an issue recently then look for any recent changes to your system (including viruses). Do you mean lag (pages seem slow to open but can be OK when open) or throttling (things are just slow). They are different and have different causes. Use your performance tools to see what you network traffic looks like.
posted by epo at 4:35 AM on September 1, 2013 [5 favorites]


You can use Process Explorer. It was developed by Sysinternals, who are so highly respected, Microsoft bought them.
posted by theora55 at 8:52 AM on September 1, 2013 [2 favorites]


2nd'ing Process Explorer. You can do a tree view, and see exactly which files are being executed under the processes. That normally lends some more light into exactly what is being run.
posted by stew560 at 10:26 AM on September 1, 2013


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