Yea I dont have that problem at all anymore. Plus I only have two running now.

@.unicorn, no mate. won't they scanned by Norton AntiVirus 2003 Professional? i have that installed.
@Will, cheers!
@all, i just want to know if having 5 svchost.exe files is normal or not. anybody having the same #?

thanks for your replies! :)

I don't know if its normal or not but i have 5 instances, check the screenie

I have 4 running, is that normal??

Well lets just imagine that every service is running ok and they all show up in task manager.

Well then you would have a lot more than 5. So however many you have is because of what services you have running. Exspically if they are on automatic.

Here is a whole list I just created that uses the svchost.exe file.

Alerter
Application Management
Background Intelligent Transfer Service
COM+ Event System
Computer Browser
Cryptographic Services
DHCP Client
Distributed Link Tracking Client
DNS Client
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
Help and Support
Human Interface Device Access
Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) / Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
Logical Disk Manager
Network Connections
Network Location Awareness (NLA)
Portable Media Serial Number Service
Remote Access Auto Connection Manager
Remote Access Connection Manager
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Remote Registry
Removable Storage
Routing and Remote Access
Secondary Logon
Server
Shell Hardware Detection
SSDP Discovery Service
System Event Notification
System Restore Service
Task Scheduler
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Telephony
Terminal Services
Themes
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
WebClient
Windows Audio
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Windows Management Instrumentation
Windows Management Instrumentation Driver Extensions
Windows Time
Wireless Zero Configuration
Workstation

So each one of though services can make a svchost.exe file appear in task manager. Which ones, well I am not going through every single one just to find out.

But I will say these two on my system are the ones that casue svchost.exe to be dispalyed in task manager, that I am sure of:

Telephony
Network Connections

the machine i'm on at school right now has 3 running....

of that list above, the ones that i think that would cause it to run would be:

Alerter
Background Intelligent Transfer Service
Computer Browser
DHCP Client
Distributed Link Tracking Client
DNS Client
Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) / Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)
Network Connections
Network Location Awareness (NLA)
Remote Access Auto Connection Manager
Remote Access Connection Manager
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Remote Registry
Routing and Remote Access
Server
SSDP Discovery Service
Task Scheduler
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Telephony
Terminal Services
Upload Manager
WebClient
Windows Time
Workstation

but, some services can use the same process as others, so, even if you have all of these running, you may only see 4 or 5 svchosts listed in task manager, which is also why each of them use different amounts of ram