Yes calling home is when things in your boot that startup and access the Internet
to give information or receive information from what ever site or program that installed them.
If you notice in the pictures in my post #6 their are very few check marks.
Their is a reason for that. The other things don't need to start until I or Windows 7 request them to.
This may help in the understanding.
Take a read through #6 and #7
By Brink:
Optimize Windows 7
LaybackBear,
So, I've "disabled" all of the Services in the box.
So, do I now enable them one by one and re-start the computer with them enabled to see which one is spawning all of my dllhost's?
Test the issue for a day with the services disabled. If the problem does not stay, and you restarted a few times and nothing; Then it must be some program on your pc running a service causing the issue. Yes I would re-enable them one by one, starting with your AV (if that was disabled) and then continue from there. Monitor each one turned on for a day or a few hours and do a couple restarts. If issue does not happen go to the next one until you discover the issue.
ok, will do.
what is AV?
AV = antivirus
A reminder!!
Do not mess with Windows 7 Services only Non Windows Services should be tested.
I had a customer this week with a similar problem, turmed out to be a rather nasty piece of spyware that had gotten by their antivirus, combofix, mbam, and spybot. My suggestion would be to download the program Process Explorer and run it. I will provide a link below. Once you have it running, hover over one of the dllhost entries listed in the program and a info box will pop up where it will show what called the dllhost, it will say something like " command line:" the c:\... etc.
I'll post a screenshot of what it should look like.
Here is the link to Process Explorer: Process Explorer
If you could post a screenshot of what file it shows is spawning the dllhost process we might be able to figure out how to stop it.
Here's the pic from process explorer. It does look like virus? Or some hidden program repeatedly accessing internet for spam. let me see if attaching this photo worked....
dllhostpic.docx
Thanks for posting the screenshot. I would use another program to save the screenshot next time, like microsoft Paint and save it as a jpg. Then when you attach it to your post it will show up inline.
If you could, try hovering over a few of the other dllhost instances, the one you chose seems to be for the instance of Firefox you have open and on the duckduckgo search engine. Look for one where you see something like c:\users\... in the commandline part of the popup at the top.
It is unusual to have that many dllhost instances showing up under explorer (or anywhere else). It seems like one or more infections might be at work. You might want to upload that screenshot via this method:
Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums
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