About the name not showing in your processes list:
I've never encountered that. It might be fishy, but then again it might be normal. Can someone else comment on this?

Oh, and the 'activity handler' is called 'task manager' in english wink

About the svchost files you found:
- the last 2 (SMSvcHost.*) aren't a problem, if they don't show up in your running processes list (task manager). As far as I can tell, these are host processes for networking services, but by default they should be disabled. So if you never touched any services, they're probably not going to be in your way.

- the other 4 (actual svchost.exe) are the ones you're looking for. From where I'm standing, your list seems to be 'almost' harmless. There's the one in windows\system32 (which is the one being actively used, so that one is cool), 2 more in service pack data files (which shouldn't be used, and probably aren't), but the latest one can or can't be dangerous.

The safest thing you can do to test, is rename all of them except for the system32 version. If you can rename them (for example, change their extension to .backup or something) without explorer complaining that they're read-only, locked, or in use, then you're 99% absolutely safe. Don't forget to rename them back to the original when you're done testing, though!! Otherwise your future service pack updates might go wrong.

And finally, about the services tutorial:
You might want to start from wikipedia. It gives a basic summary of what services are, and how you can get at them. They also give some links to more information.

Hope this helps wink. Give a hauler if you need more help or info.

Last edited by Sektor; 13/05/08 02:17 PM. Reason: Fixed url
"The Large Print giveth, and the Small Print taketh away" - Tom Waits