There are many ways to improve your system performance. Some ways crash your computer, some ways do not. So briefly lets talk about system priorities and ranges, and I will show you a very easy way to adjust your priority without crashing the application.
System priorities range from 0 to 31, 0 - 15 are used by Dynamic applications, such as user applications and most of the operating system parts, 16-31 are used by real time applications like the kernel which cannot be written to the page file. Normal priority is level 8 (NT 3.51 normal was 7). The full list is : - realtime, priority 24
- high, priority 13
- normal, priority 8
- low, priority 4
- abovenormal 10 (Windows 2000 only)
- belownormal 6 (Windows 2000 only)
For those of you that are not technical minded, do not worry about it. We are going to explain this very simply.
One way is to modify the privilege of a currently running application is to use Task Manager - Start Task Manager (Right Click on the Start Bar and select Task Manager)
- Click on the Processes tab
- Right Click on the required process and select "Set Priority"
- You can then select a different priority
- Close Task Manager
But I wanted to show you a way to modify a process, and have it start the same way every time you reboot, or clicked on it. In our example I use msconfig (since we all have that simple command) ...
Msconfig :
Is located at
c:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\msconfig.exe ,
but lets say you have the icon on your desktop for our example ...
So, lets modify it :
1. Right click on the msconfig icon & select properties.
2. In Target replace c:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\msconfig.exe with "C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /C start /HIGH c:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\msconfig.exe"
Notice the "HIGH" in that statement. You can replace HIGH with ABOVEAVERAGE or REALTIME. To use the /realtime option you have to be logged on as a user with Administrator privileges (Avoid RealTime if having only one CPU). Also notice I defined the entire path to our CMD shell. You can shorten this to "cmd.exe /C start /HIGH c:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\msconfig.exe" if you wish, but I like using full paths for various reasons.
3. Type in " c:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\" in your Start In : (Box).
That is it ! Click OKAY !
Now when you click on your Msconfig icon, you will see a brief CMD window, then Msconfig will pop up with HIGH high, priority (13) and will start everytime with the same priority. You can check on the process priority by right clicking on your taskbar, task manager, highlight the Image name (by clicking on it), right click, set priority , and "HIGH" will be selected.
Job well done (and get it done) !
Big deal ????
Lets say you wanted to play a game and want more speed in your game.
(Now we are talking)
Well, all you have to do is to make rename c:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\msconfig.exe with your games {Path\name} and make sure you adjust the Start In (Box) with the starting directory. Choose "HIGH" if you have 1 CPU , or "REALTIME" for those of you that have more than 1 cpu ...
Now your game will play as fast as the computer will allow it. Nice !
There are also ways to modify your registry which are more confusing than this simple little hack. I like the KISS principal ( Keep it simple stupid ) , it works for me
Also read our article on :
Using flash memory to increase system speed (XP)
where you can download a nice utility using your flash drive to dramatically increase your system performance (XP ONLY)
It is FREE !
Labels: breaking news os9user system performance windows priorities task manager flash drive
|
