Set a process priority in Windows XP

Windows runs a program as a separate process. By default, all programs are run with normal priority. The priority is the availability of the CPU power to that process. So if there are two processes with different priorities, Windows would favor the process with higher priority to use the CPU.

Windows allows six different kinds of process priorities – Idle, Below Normal, Normal, Above Normal, High and Realtime. The Idle priority is the lowest and the Realtime priority is the highest possible priority for a process. Because a program with higher priority is favored with more CPU power, it runs faster compared to a lower priority process. You can change the priority of any process in Windows as shown below :

  1. Open Task Manager by pressing the key combination Ctrl + Shift + Esc
  2. Select the Processes tab by clicking on it
  3. Right-click on any process you want to change the priority of. Choose Set Priority and select a desired priority as shown.