I have seen 6 before, but not that often. 4 - 5 is more typical. I don't recall seeing less than 4, or more than 6, except with a badly infested machine.
My XP Pro SP3 has 4 svchost.exe images running, the wife's XP Home SP3 has 5.
So to me, 6 would make me wonder what's going on - and cause me to ensure my security defenses had not been bypassed, or my computer or personal information compromised. Have you done a complete malware scan? And tell us more about your computer, version of Windows, security setup (AV, firewall, etc. you are using), and details any symptoms or performance issues.
Because we know nothing of your system or actual (if any) problem, and, well, because it can't hurt
I recommend you run a supplemental scan with
Malwarebytes's Anti-Malware (MBAM). Make sure you check for updates to get the most recent signature/definition files before you start the scan. I also recommend running "Disk Cleanup" on each drive
first - no need to scan 1000s of temporary files.
That said, the below are all enhanced Task Manager type programs that will show you what is running on your computer. Each is nice in its own way. What's Running is probably the easiest, with AutoRuns for the more experienced, and Process Explorer the most popular. With these, for example, you can see what processes are using each of those various svchost.exe images.
AutoRuns for Windows
Process Explorer
What's Running
Liutilities
Process Library, or Google, are good places to research processes found that you cannot identify.
