Windows high priority class

Contents Exit focus mode. SetPriorityClass function processthreadsapi. Please rate your experience Yes No. Any additional feedback? In this article. Process that performs time-critical tasks that must be executed immediately. The threads of the process preempt the threads of normal or idle priority class processes. An example is the Task List, which must respond quickly when called by the user, regardless of the load on the operating system.

Use extreme care when using the high-priority class, because a high-priority class application can use nearly all available CPU time. Process whose threads run only when the system is idle. The threads of the process are preempted by the threads of any process running in a higher priority class. An example is a screen saver. The idle-priority class is inherited by child processes. Begin background processing mode.

The system lowers the resource scheduling priorities of the process and its threads so that it can perform background work without significantly affecting activity in the foreground.

The threads of the process are preempted by the threads of a process that run in a higher priority class, for example, a screen saver. The idle-priority class is inherited by child processes. Below Normal Normal Above Normal High Priority Specified for a process that performs time-critical tasks that must be executed immediately.

The threads of the process preempt the threads of normal or idle priority class processes. An example is the Task List, which must respond quickly when called by the user, regardless of the load on the operating system.

Use extreme care when using the high-priority class, because a high-priority class application can use nearly all of the available CPU time. But honestly, how many times have you used this feature for any business apps on your Workstations or Servers?

The answer is probably not much. The default CPU scheduling algorithm is adequately designed to distribute CPU among running processes in most scenarios. So how do you drill it down? Well, we need to check some basic settings first.