Had mini-discussion about Windows services with Noah (check out his fresh tech blog) under setting up family computer post. svchost.exe is one of the most confusing aspects of issue – it acts like container process so it is hard to see outright what services are inside.
svchost Viewer is small utility that shows services currently run by svchost (was found and bookmarked a while back from WinExtra post on svchost).
What it does
Think of it as downsized task manager. It only fetches information relevant to svchost and services to combine it in single tree view.
No real time stats, but memory and disk performance stats are calculated on scan.
Strong features
While being slightly boring, app performs important function of bringing all of relevant information together. Sure it is possible to use powerful task manager like Process Explorer to get a clue about running processes and then dig Control Panel consoles for details…
svchost Viewer cuts jumps from the process and gets everything neatly packed together. As well as native system descriptions for services which are often really useful.
Overall
Tiny open source app for single purpose. Requires .NET Framework so not portable but works without installation. Nice addition to any tech toolkit which will come handy on every computer where someone tried to optimize services. :)
Home http://svchostviewer.codeplex.com/
Download http://svchostviewer.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx
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Nice – it works fine, gives the information without opening services, but can I just say, just because it says the service can be stopped, doesn’t mean it should be ;)
@Noah
just because it says the service can be stopped, doesn’t mean it should be ;)
Can’t agree more. :)
I love tiny utilities like these. Its a great tool. I also wrote about it on my blog sometime back.
@Pallab
Yeah, small utilities are often nice and mostly easy to use. Except when there are too much of them in folder it creates bit of a chaos. :)