You probably know that you can set the CPU affinity with Task Manager (right click on a process). This comes in handy, as sometimes it is useful to run a certain program just on one processor core. I usually do this if I have an app that runs amok and utilizes all my CPU resources. Restricting this program to one CPU core gives me back some processor power. You can also decrease the CPU priority, but in my experience, this doesn’t always help.
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Since quad core CPUs are becoming common, even on desktop computers, there are more options for making use of processor affinity. For example, you could reserve some of your CPU cores for an application that needs more resources. Virtualization solutions are typical candidates for this. Unfortunately, managing processor affinity with Task Manager is a bit cumbersome. That’s where Edgemeal Get and Set CPU Affinity comes in.
The main advantage over Task Manager is that Edgemeal Get and Set CPU Affinity enables you to set the processor affinity for multiple processes. You can easily move all running apps to CPU 0 and your problematic program to CPU 1, for instance. To do this, you just have to mark multiple processes and then assign them to a certain CPU. Of course, there are many other reasons why one might want to change processor affinity.
Another useful feature is the favorites pane. This allows you to save your preferred CPU affinity for certain programs. The next time you want to apply these settings, you can do it with just a mouse click.
If you want your CPU affinity configuration to be set automatically when your computer boots up, then you can set the options “Enable Auto on Start” and “Start with Windows”.
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Edgemeal Get and Set CPU Affinity
(Leonardo, thanks for the tip).
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If you use a combination of “Favorites, auto-set affinity, enable auto on start and start with windows” (I know, a lot of clicking), the program will start with windows and auto-set your favorites when they run.
I have been using Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 to set the processor affinity of certain processes on XP. I wrote a detailed how-to with screenshots here: http://mypkb.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/how-to-programmatically-set-the-processor-affinity-of-an-application-updated/
@MichelAngelo: ACT5 looks good for dealing with processor & UAC issues in a domain enviroment as well, so I’m going to keep the little app on my personal computer and keep ACT5 in mind should I come across a Vista domain. Thanks for the info!
edgemeal software is now at http://sourceforge.net/projects/edgemealsoftware/