This has been going on for quite a time. In Task manager I see duplicate instances of processes. I have rebooted my laptop some minutes ago and have launched only Spotify, Battle.net and chrome, so it's not that bad at the moment, usually there is a lot more.
I have:
- conhost.exe x2
- csrss.exe x2
- igfxEM.exe x2
- Battle.net Helper.exe x2
- remoting_host.exe x2
- svchost.exe x14
- taskhostw.exe x2
I understand that chrome, spotify and other programs use multiple processes, but do these? Ram usage is 2.7/3.9 with everything launched I mentioned before, which I think is pretty high. I have disabled everything in start-up except for peripherals processes and set startup types to manual for processes I know were safe to change (mostly software updaters, sql server processes and some others)
Laptop has i3-3110m processor and 64bit OS.
Is this normal?
2 Answers
In Task Manager you may find it helpful to add additional columns to your view to see exactly what each of those processes might be doing. If you click View > Select Columns and then place a check mark in Image Path, Command Line and User Name it will allow you to drill down in more detail.
Sometimes the same process might have to run as a service under a system account and then it will start another instance under each active user.
There are other cases where you might look at a Battle.net helper.exe and notice that it was executed with different command line parameters as an example (this isn't really what it does):
C:\location\Battle.net helper.exe -patchmonitor
C:\location\Battle.net helper.exe -systrayShort answer: Yes, it is perfectly normal.
Long answer: Not all processes represent apps.
You say you have launched only Spotify, Chrome and Battle.NET but you should notice that you have a Start Menu, a task bar, a desktop, a notification center, a several running apps that have icon in the tray area near the system clock. All of these have one or more processes. You probably saw a logon screen when turned your computer on. It has a process too. And then there are invisible unsung heroes of processes that make your sound card, network interface, Bluetooth, webcam, printer, scanner and the connected mobile phones work. They have processes for themselves too. (Of course, they probably have device drivers too, which are not processes. But Printer, for example, has a process associated with it called Print Spooler service.)
By far, svchost.exe is the most common process in Windows. The only apps that potentially spawn more processes are IE, Edge and Chrome. That's because many of Windows Services run in the context of svchost.exe. That's also why malware love masquarade themselves as svchost.exe. (Be sure to have an antivirus software installed and up to date at all times.)
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