Windows 7 How to set a process automatically to priority "lower than normal" on its start?

[CarloZed]

Hi, I have a game (Battlefield 2) that has certain issues under Windows 7. In online gaming, apparently the punkbuster fails to communicate in the right way until the process bf2.exe is set to priority "lower than normal" in the task manager.

this means you have to start the game, alt+tab back to the desktop, lower the priority in the taskmanager and then start playing.
this procedure has to be repeated everytime i want to play with punkbuster (so every time )

And yes, I browsed all, and I mean ALL, forums of BF2 and Punkbuster to fix this issue, so far this is the only solution that makes online gaming possible.

Now, does anyone know how to lower the priority of a process permanently and automatically every time the process starts up?

 

[Mike]

One way I know of to do it is to create a batch (.bat) file to run the program using the /low switch. It is kind of complicated, but would look something like this..

cd "C:\Program Files\BF2" 
     %comspec% /c start /low bf2.exe

This is a rough idea, but if you get my drift, it may work properly. However, with the use of Punkbuster I'm not sure if it will work. You will need to replace the paths in my example with the real locations. You can find the real locations to applications by looking up the properties to a shortcut.

So you run Notepad, and call it something like "BF2_low_priorty.bat" when you save the file. This basically opens a command prompt, goes to the selected directory, and attempts to run the program in a low priority state. Whether or not it will work with Battlefield 2 or newer apps, I have no idea, as I have not tested this procedure in quite awhile. Generally, procedures such as these do work with proper tinkering around.

Once the batch file is set up and you know that it works properly, you can use this to launch the game all the time. Batch files are still used in many instances for Windows scripting on Windows domain networks to perform tasks on many computers at the same time. While not the most precise answer, I hope that this gives you a way to at least attempt to make it work in your favor.

Others may have a better answer to this issue, and there may be a freeware application out there that lets you change the priority of certain programs on startup.

Kind regards, and welcome to the forums.