How do I remove dllhost.exe in Windows?

Anonymous February 26, 2014

My PC contains dllhost.exe it makes my PC deadly slow and hangs everything.

Please help me how to remove it as it always appear even after removing from Task Manager!

  1. Dalsan M
    February 26, 2014 at 9:52 pm

    You can't disable or remove the dllhost.exe task as it is a necessary system process. You can try running System File Checker tool from the command prompt by entering in sfc /scannow. I would suggest running a virus scan just to make sure it is not a virus causing the dllhost to have such high usage.

    A corrupt media file, most likely on the desktop or other area in the open, could cause the thumbnail generation process to overload the dllhost. Try the suggestions here:

    Also, if you have any large media files (music or videos) or have many files on your desktop (not just shortcuts), try moving them to another location. Although the desktop is an easier option to find files and folders, creating a shortcut to the file would be highly recommended instead of placing the files on the desktop.

    If these suggestions do not help, let us know. We can try to give other suggestions that may help.

  2. Jan F
    February 26, 2014 at 9:38 pm

    First and foremost you should establish whether the dllhost.exe causing your issues is the "real one" from Windows or some malware.
    1. Run a virus scan with an up2date antivirus software
    2. In the Task Manager do a right-click > Properties on t he dllhost.exe. The real file should be residing either in System32 or SysWOW64.

    Now, for the real dllhost.exe it is the COM Surrogate system and is used to run code which could possibly crash the explorer task. It's kind of a throw-away process.

    So removing/deleting it should not be done since it's part of Windows and without it things would be even worse. Instead of dllhost being out of control it would actually be your entire explorer.

    Grab a copy of Process Monitor
    extract and run it
    click on Filter (ctrl + L)
    select "Process Name", "is", "dllhost.exe" then "include" and add
    then apply the filter

    After a few seconds scroll down to the bottom, in Process Explorer as whatever is keeping it busy should constantly pop up in it. It could be some image or video where Windows fails to create a preview. It could be some DLL file from a shell extension that is not working properly, etc...

    Feel free to report back with your findings.

  3. Hovsep A
    February 26, 2014 at 9:20 pm