How to set processor affinity from Batch File for Windows XP?

Question

I've got a dual processor machine and I would like to launch an executable via a batch file on both processors.

For example: (1) Launch Notepad.exe on Processor 1, and (2) Simultaneously, Notepad.exe on Processor 2

Currently, I'm using the following in my batch file, since my executable was "difficult" to launch and needed a return in order to run when launched: echo.|DoStuff.exe

Thus, I would like to launch it and have it run on each processor.

Thanks for any feedback provided.

P.S. I don't think "start" will work for me since I need to send in the return character to the executable as shown above with echo.

P.S.S. This is for a Windows XP solution. Thanks.

Answer 1

• This page talks about a free tool called XCPU you can use to launch and set affinity. However the link within doesn't work. Maybe a bit of googling can locate it for you.

• And there is a simmillar tools here called runfirst.

Answer 2

start /affinity 1 notepad.exe

start /affinity 2 notepad.exe

Answer 3

Microsoft's Sysinternal's psexec's -a flag can set processor affinity on Windows XP:

Usage: psexec [\\computer[,computer2[,...] | @file][-u user [-p psswd]][-n s][-l][-s|-e][-x][-i
[session]][-c [-f|-v]][-w directory][-d][-][-a n,n,...] cmd [arguments]
     -a         Separate processors on which the application can run with
                commas where 1 is the lowest numbered CPU. For example,
                to run the application on CPU 2 and CPU 4, enter:
                "-a 2,4"

For example:

psexec -a 2 cmd /c "echo.|DoStuff.exe"

Answer 4

This tool I made remembers user's preferences about core affinities and applies them in the future http://usuarios.lycos.es/coreaffinity/

Answer 5

@Preet Sangha: it can still be found using archive.org, see http://web.archive.org/web/20071012053544/http://www.appliedvisual.com/xcpu.htm

Posting this here since this is one of the higher-ranked Google results, so this can probably still be useful to some.