Last week I was asked by my father in law if you can change anything in CPU setting which boosts the performance in your computer with Windows Vista Home Premium. I looked in my MSDOS books which I have used in my whole live and I remembered the MSDOS command Start.

With this MSDOS command you are able to start any program and application with advanced preferences. Actually you can use this command in every Windows operation system but it is very useful for Vista because Windows Vista has performance problems and you can increase the performance in Windows Vista with Start command.

In Windows Vista you are able to tell Windows to run your application on one CPU or at a low or high priority level. It is very helpful if you are using CPUs with multiple cores or a HT CPU.  

Here is a description how Start command works in MSDOS.

START ["title"] [/Dpath] [/I] [/MIN] [/MAX] [/SEPARATE | /SHARED]

[/LOW | /NORMAL | /HIGH | /REALTIME | /ABOVENORMAL | /BELOWNORMAL]

[/WAIT] [/B] [command/program]

[parameters]

To run the Start command to boost your Vista performance you have to do these steps:

1-    Click on Start button, write CMD in the Search Box and click Enter

After the MSDOS Window appears write this line in command area: start /affinity X /abovenormal Y.exe

2-    Replace X with the number of your CPU and Y with the application which you want to run

3-    You can replace abovenormal with Low, Normal, High, Realtime or Belownormal

4-    Hit the Enter and your application will start with the Priority which you typed in your command line

For example if you want to work with Adobe Photoshop with high priority and you have 2 CPU in your computer then you have to write:

start /affinity 2 / High Photoshop.exe

This was one of many ways to increase performance in Vista. I am sure I will come back with a new article to make your Windows Vista faster.