The Svchost problem you mention in XP was down to Windows Updates and only affected lower end spec PC'S particularly those with lower memory, this problem was resolved though.

You need to click the "Show Process from all users" at the bottom, it's not a process running under the user account else I would be able to see it in your screen dump, so it's going to be something running under "System" account which could be A/V etc I work on plenty of Windows 7 machines and can confirm the update problem has not reborn in 7.

Martin