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If automatic time update is turned on, then it may simply be svchost periodically attempting to access the internet.

Why does svchost access the internet?

This manifests a couple of ways: your firewall warns you that svchost.exe is attempting to the internet, or it attempts to dial your internet provider.

It's probably simple.

You probably have automatic time updates turned on. That runs as a svchost hosted process (What is SVCHOST?), and periodically attempts to connect to an internet service to set you clock for you. You can turn that off by right clicking the clock in your task bar, selecting Adjust Date/Time, and clicking on the Internet Time tab.

Article C2176 - September 1, 2004

Leo Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed. After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.

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29 Comments

You are full of BS, MS is NOT spying on you. Why would they even care about you anyway? Windows also tries to update root certificates as well. You can disable that by removing update root certificates from the Add/Remove Windows components. If your computer was part of a domain at work, and you brought it home, it will try to find the domain periodically as well.
Please stop spewing garbage.

Posted by: SmarterThanYou at December 22, 2009 8:07 AM

i've been tracking SVCHOST.exe each time he tried to access internet.I've notice what their IP are.
Of course,there is microsoft,but there are also strange things at strange moment.
When i install a program for example,SCVHOST connect to an ip with no Relation-ship with the installed program.This programs may want to access internet but why SVCHOST ???

Another thing is that most ip concern concern internet access provider CONCURRENT to mine.
I have nothing to do with them.why SVCHOST try something with them...

Finally,i decided to block it temporarly

Posted by: Chem at February 25, 2010 5:47 PM

Recently my firewall popped up saying that svchost.exe is invading, i know almost nothing about computers so i blocked it thinking it is something bad. But this warning would keep popping up every few mins so i decided to allow seeing what will happen.
nothing happened untill i closed the laptop and opened it again the next day.
when ever i would try to open internet or firefox it would just close by it self automatically.
i tried to change the firewall but there are many svchost, i tried blocking them all and allowing them all but nothing would happen

Posted by: Kevin at March 16, 2010 10:23 PM

Don't ask me why but utorrent udp connections can show up as svchost in your firewall log. Though I am sure that many applications can can be the cause.

Posted by: Brendan at October 12, 2010 7:22 AM

I've simply disabled windows time sync. And svchost didn't try to connect to the internet anymore. Proving this "request" was for the clock in my case.

Be sure to keep your clock sync'ed some other way then. It's important for several reasons.
Leo
27-Jan-2011

Posted by: Killerbeenl at January 27, 2011 1:38 AM
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