Svchost.exe and Igfxpers.exe Windows Processes

By Mark Debattista

As a kid I pretty much knew what a computer program was: it was what you loaded on to your system after 15 minutes of screeching from a cassette deck (if you were lucky: if you weren't lucky it crashed after 14 minutes). Nowadays software is so many times more complicated and sophisticated. Programs are now collections of smaller programs each handling different aspects of the larger program's functionality such as printing and graphics etc.

Now a computer program is a sequential series of instructions that your computer follows to, say, print a document, in the same way that a recipe is a sequential series of instructions that you follow to bake a cake. If the program is the series of instructions, a process is an instance of these instructions being executed.

You can actually check out the processes running on your PC at any point in time. All you have to do is either press the CTRL, ALT and DELETE keys together and then click on Task manager from the window that then appears, or you can press the CTRL, SHIFT and ESCAPE keys together which will call up the task manager directly. Depending on how much software you have running and installed you'll probably see something in the region of 30-40 processes.

Taking just one process as an example, to see what it does, lets look at igfxpers.exe. This is a process installed alongside the NVidia graphics cards and provides additional configuration options for these devices. This program is a non-essential process, but should not be terminated unless suspected to be causing problems.

Not all processes are useful and some are out and out harmful, and so terminating processes is an effective way to remove threats and increase memory. However you have to be careful since malicious processes sometimes disguise themselves as important processes in order to side-step your security.

Take svchost.exe as an example. This is a system process belonging to the Microsoft Windows operating system which handles processes executed from DLLs. This program is important for the stable and secure running of your computer and should not be terminated.

However scvhost.exe is a process which is registered as W32/Agobot-S virus. This Trojan allows attackers to access your computer from remote locations, stealing passwords, Internet banking and personal data. This process is a security risk and should be removed from your system, but to hide this virus, the virus writers have chosen a name that is similar to that of a necessary process.

For more information about svchost.exe, igfxpers.exe and for precise definitions of what any existing process does and whether or not it is a threat, I suggest that you check out the website ProcessLibrary.com. This is a useful site with a real reputation in the tech community which should be able to answer most of your process questions.

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