What is Generic Host Process for Win32 Services with the file name/path C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe and does it need server permission to work properly?

admyc · 2006-10-23T22:07:13+00:00

HelloI have just started getting ridiculous amounts alerts from my firewallprogram (ZoneAlarm by ZoneLabs), which say that it had blocked'Generic Host Process for Win32' from accepting a connection fromthe internet. When I look in the program list in ZoneAlarm I see thatthis program 'Generic Host Process for Win32 Services' with filename/path C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe is set not to allow it tohave server permission for the Internet Zone. It is however set to haveaccess permission.I don't know what this program is, but does it require serverpermission for the Internet zone to work properly?Also when ZoneAlarm says 'blocked...from accepting a connection fromthe internet' does this mean the program in question was trying toact as a server? (I assume that if it were to accept a connection fromthe internet this would imply that it had not made the connectionrequest itself and so would be trying to act as a server but not sure).I don't know what has caused ZoneAlarm to suddenly act like this.Before this happened I had installed xampp (so that I can use mycomputer as a server to test php pages) but I don't see how thiscould have affected ZoneAlarm. Also I had decided to have a closer lookat ZoneAlarm just before this happened but didn't notice making anychanges to it whatsoever.Is it safe to change 'Generic Host Process for Win32 Services' so ithas server permission for the Internet Zone? And if it is why didn'tit need to do this before?Any help most welcome!AM