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JSI Tip 0269 - Set foreground/backround priority in the Windows NT 4.0 registry.
Jerold Schulman
October 5, 1997
1 Min Read
The relative priority of foreground vs background applications can be set my modifying Win32PrioritySeparation at:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetControlPriorityControlWin32PrioritySeparation
This type REG_DWORD entry defaults to 2 if the value is not present.
Win32PrioritySeparation determines how much processor time the threads of a foreground process receive each time they are scheduled on a Windows NT workstation processor.
Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
0 | Short processor interval. Foreground threads get the same amount of processor time as background threads which is the same as threads of processes with a priority class of Idle. |
1 | Medium length processor interval. Foreground processes get more processor time than background processes each time they are scheduled. |
2 | Long processor interval. Foreground thread processes get much more processor time than background processes. |
On a Windows NT 4.0 Server, the length of processor time each thread gets is longer than on a workstation, but it is fixed. The value of Win32PrioritySeparation is used to calculate a priority boost for foreground processes. The higher the value, the greater the boost.
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