Windows XP has a lot of services the run by default, many with names you may not recognize, or understand what they do.  While disabling svchost is not the best of ideas, maybe you don’t need UPnP running in the background.  Drop by PC Stats, they’ve just published a guide on understanding and tweaking the services WinXP runs.
“In Windows XP, background processes are called Services and they will be the topic of this PCSTATS Beginner’s Guides. We’re going to look at what the WinXP Services are, why they’re necessary, which ones should be running on your system and which ones you can do without. The reason for occasional slow performance with WindowsXP is because of what’s going on in the background.”

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