svchost.exe

[azcoyote]

When connecting to the internet Zone Alarm pops up a message asking to
allow Generic Host Process for Win 32 (svchost.exe) access. What is
Generic Host Process/svchost? I'm running XP.

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

azcoyote wrote:
> When connecting to the internet Zone Alarm pops up a message asking to
> allow Generic Host Process for Win 32 (svchost.exe) access. What is
> Generic Host Process/svchost? I'm running XP.

Generic Host Process is the friendly name for svchost.exe. It should be
allowed to access the internet but not necessarily to act as a server. It
allows various system services to run like Time Synchronisation as well as
the DNScache service and there may be others.

For an overview of the svhost.exe module, see the following article.

A Description of Svchost.exe in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314056

--
Ronnie Vernon
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

Associate Expert
ExpertZone - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
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