What is "WINHOST.EXE"?? [removal?]

My bro-in-law installed a program on my PC (without my permission) called "LIMEWIRE ", a P-2-P app of some sort. Next day I deleted all ref to it (except in Registry yet) but I noticed my hard drive kept thrashing at all times. And my Task Manager dissapeared from Quicklaunch. I got it up with Alt-Ctrl-Del.

In T.M. I found an app called WINHOST.EXE using 6% of my cpu, when nothing else was loaded or running. When I end-processed WINHOST the thrashing stopped.

I also found WINHOST in my MSCONFIG/STARTUP and it was created at the same time my B-in-law installed LIMEWIRE. (Smoking gun!?!?)

My 2 questions are
1) Is WINHOST.EXE a legitimate part of MS-WINDOWS XP Home?
(I am loathe to delete it unless sure)
2) How can I get my Task Manager back on my desktop?

 

Pete; Thankyou

Thanks. I am removing that worm now.

Now how do I put Task Manager back on my desktop.

 

Again, my thanks

Very useful tip. No need to regedit to get TM back, as there are simple keystrokes to do it as easily.

Rt-Clk on taskbar & select TM; or Ctrl-Shft-Esc will bring it up.

Also the worm has turned and is gone. Disk drive is normal again.

Thread closed.