Setting and Changing Windows Process Priority Permanently Question

How do you set the process priority of a particular app or Windows App permanently ? Most apps are set to normal process priority, but some I want to have a higher importance and others lower. My question is ? How do you make the process priority permanent with any App or even IE or anything. I know you can change it in the task manager to anything you like but when you reboot it goes back to normal. Give me a clue as I am stumped !

there's no way to perminantly have it start on another priority, most programs have their own "default" priority.

The easiest thing you can do is use the "start" command instead. So, if you want to start winamp as high priority, then you would change the link from
"C:\Program Files\Winamp\Winamp.exe"
to
"start /high C:\Program Files\Winamp\Winamp.exe"

options available are:
/low
/belownormal
/normal
/abovenormal
/high
/realtime (don't use!!!)

In addition to su root's suggestion afa using the 'start' command, you can create a batch file with the appropriate parameters to start your program and then link this to your icon or menu item for the program in question.

You do understand that NT/2000/XP runs the foreground process at 'Above Normal' to begin with and that the OS will dynamically increase the priority based on what's happening with the program at any given time. Manually changing the priority of a process typically won't change it's overall performance unless you're running a lot of processes simultaneously and the CPU load is not near zero at idle.

Here's a link to an article that MS published originally for NT, but they haven't made any drastic changes in how the process priority system works in 2000 or XP...

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q96418

Thank you su root and redduc900 ! Your explanantions and information was very thorough. The process priority selection process by the kernel is very complicated indeed after reading your linkage redduc900. Its appears that my selection to raise or lower a certain process priority has little impact on the overall performance with the kernel calling the shots in this game.

Also I did not know the forground process gets more attention then others as you stated. It makes sense though !

Thanks for the Assist again !

su root said:

there's no way to perminantly have it start on another priority, most programs have their own "default" priority.

The easiest thing you can do is use the "start" command instead. So, if you want to start winamp as high priority, then you would change the link from
"C:\Program Files\Winamp\Winamp.exe"
to
"start /high C:\Program Files\Winamp\Winamp.exe"

options available are:
/low
/belownormal
/normal
/abovenormal
/high
/realtime (don't use!!!)

Click to expand...

The "start /high C:\Program Files\xxxxxx.exe" format doesn't seem to work in Win XP??. I put the start /high in front of the link, inside the first quote, and WinXP tells me it's invalid. I tried a few variations, but none work.

Daemonfly said:

The "start /high C:\Program Files\xxxxxx.exe" format doesn't seem to work in Win XP??. I put the start /high in front of the link, inside the first quote, and WinXP tells me it's invalid. I tried a few variations, but none work.

Click to expand...

Hmm.. I don't have an XP box to test this on, so I can't be sure, but I would assume it should work all the same..

You are executing .EXE files, right? I don't know if you can execute .LNK or .URL files (shortcuts) like this..

Instead of using the command prompt to change the priority of a running process, try changing the priority via Task Manager | 'Processes' tab | Right click the running process you'd like to change the priority level of, and select 'Set Priority'. AFA setting the priority level permanently, you can create a batch file using the appropriate parameters (as I made note of above), or you can do the same by starting your app from a script (or let the app be an argument/parameter to the script)...

Create Method in Class Win32_Process

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/create_method_in_class_win32_process.asp

Alternatively, you can change the priority on a existing process with Win32_Process.SetPriority...

SetPriority Method in Class Win32_Process

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/setpriority_method_in_class_win32_process.asp

For a desktop shortcut to work, I had to use:
C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /c "start /abovenormal notepad.exe"