A process called Service Host: Local System is using up all of my laptops resources

WOW!  Seem that is true,  just disabling Windows Update  services    save me  20% of the RAM memory (though this machine only has 4 GB). 

So are you going to remember to manually initiate windows update every week?

WOW!  Seem that is true,  just disabling Windows Update  services    save me  20% of the RAM memory (though this machine only has 4 GB). 

I was closing other process such as BITS  but didn't had that quickly impact on the performance.

Hello,

Service host local system is using a lot of memory.

It can be fixed by turning of the window update service that is in the section where all services appear.

you wont be able to get any updates until you have restarted the service again.

It is best alternative if you don't upgrade  windows .

the following step should be followed:

1.Open the run window by pressing windows+R

2.type services.msc

3.click the windows update service and stop it.

4.now in the properties start-up type should be disable .

A couple of comments:

A) It is absolutely ridiculous that over 2 years and sooooo many ppl complaining that Microsoft is silent on the issue!

B) the screen shot above still shows 761M (!) of usage by just one of the Service Host processes

Microsoft - any response????????????

Why no response...because the Service Host is running just fine.  Really...why?

There is a general misunderstanding of what the Service Host does.

Take the name Host, when you go to a party the Host lets you as well as other guests in right? The "Service Host" is no different except the party house is the computer which is running and its job is to host services. Now for the most part the guests are behaved and nothing happens, but every so often a guest becomes unruly....

The Service Host (SH) is simply a conduit for applications (non-user initiated), these are applications which perform background tasks (like logging on to the internet so you can browse via a browser) or it may be a task to work with a video driver so you can see text on the page while watching a moving video. 

Since the SH is responsible for the memory, any app requesting memory falls within its realm, hence why people see differing problems, for ultimately it is the hosted application which is sucking up the memory. That is why someone says that my computer worked when I first bought it but....

You need to determine what *you* have ultimately loaded which is taking up so much memory. For you are the host of your computer, who did you let into the party?

:-)

Tbh, what i thnk is happening is that... when your computer goes to sleep it dumps the RAM  because the ram is volatile. therefoe the contents of the memory are temporarly stored in the disk In addittion to that it has to share the cpu time with other processes when resuming from sleep mode to restore the RAM. YOU HAVE EITHER very large RAM, SLOW CPU, or many programs competing for time.