ProcessGovernor, Personal Edition

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How does ProcessGovernor work?

Read here, how the ProcessGovernor works and why low process priorities can accelerate your computer. [more]

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More information about ProcessGovernor?

Read here, how ProcessGovernor works on a terminal server or multiprocessor machine and where it does not help [more]

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How the ProcessGovernor works.

By automatically reducing the priority of a busy process, the user can continue to use his computer as if nothing else would be happening. If the busy process happens to be the one that he is using, he can at least freely use another program and do something else in the meantime.

Programs that are known to hang and produce a high CPU usage can be automatically closed or terminated. Obviously termination should be used with care but if no other action is possible then it can be reasonable to do this automatically.
ProcessGovernor has been designed considering the reliability and dependability of the system. It enables the operating system to help itself by optimally using the existing process priorities, which is already an integral and well established aspect of Windows. It therefore differs from solutions, which intervene and perform risky operations within the operating system.

A Terminal Server is a Windows server that allows many users to simultaneously work on the one machine. ProcessGovernor is essential on such multi-user systems since a process from one user can exploit the CPU's time to the point where the other users cannot continue working. It need not be anything hostile, the user could simply be printing something, for example. The correct use of ProcessGovernor on a terminal server can allow more users to work on one server without them severely interfering with each other. This improves its efficiency meaning fewer terminal servers are required and reduces the cost of installing and administering further servers.

Process Priorities
Priorities are something often misunderstood. Often the misapprehension exists that if a process is taking a long time to complete then, if anything, its priority should be increased supposedly in order to utilize the last few percent of the CPU's time to get the job done twice as fast. Of course this is not the case and in fact it is much more sensible to reduce the priority so it is possible to do other things in the meantime.

Consider the following example:
a service company is doing a job, which takes about one year to complete. During this year the company receives orders for a number of very small jobs, which range from a few hours to a day or two to complete. The manager may decide to make the small jobs wait until the lengthy job has been completed with the argument that it is already taking so long to do that nothing else is needed to get in the way and make it take even longer. The final outcome is that the customers with the small jobs are dissatisfied and probably wind up going somewhere else. Whereas the customer with the lengthy job is happy to get his job completed but most likely would not have been concerned if it would have been finished a few days later since he had to wait one year anyway. The better decision would be to quickly get the short jobs completed. Then the customers with those jobs are happy and are left with a good impression of the company. The customer with the lengthy job has to wait a few days longer but hardly notices.

The above example can be compared with the process scheduling in an operating system. The CPU in a computer typically has very little to do and spends most of its time doing nothing useful. When there is something to do it is usually done quickly, which is necessary otherwise all the programs that we use would be too slow to be usable. These operations that are quickly finished are the short jobs in the example. Of course there is every now and then something that needs a lot of time to complete and as the example above shows, it is better to give it a lower priority than the occasional short job. It is important to also note that the lengthy jobs do not complete much later even with the lower priority.

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Employment on terminal servers.

ProcessGovernor is essential on such multi-user systems since a process from one user can exploit the CPU's time to the point where the other users cannot continue working. It need not be anything hostile, the user could simply be printing something, for example. The correct use of ProcessGovernor on a terminal server can allow more users to work on one server without them severely interfering with each other. This improves its efficiency meaning fewer terminal servers are required and reduces the cost of installing and administering further servers.

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Employment on multiprocessor machines

The CPU usage that ProcessGovernor detects is relative to one processor. Therefore if a process would completely use both processors of dual processor system, the usage would be 200%. However, a process usually occupies only one processor when it is busy meaning the usage typically remains below 100%. (To achieve a higher usage, the process would need to contain two or more threads which are simultaneously busy.)
Essentially it only makes sense to experiment with processes on multiprocessor computers to see what sort of usage factors are produced.

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Where ProcessGovernor doesn't help:

Technically speaking, ProcessGovernor helps when two or more processes are competing for CPU time. Users may experience non-responsiveness for other reasons.

ProcessGovernor will not stop individual applications from becoming unusable if they themselves have hung or are busy. It would be wrong to assume that an application could continue to be used in this situation simply because ProcessGovernor is installed on the system. Other applications can be used, however.

ProcessGovernor does not help when processes are competing for other shared resources such as access to the hard disk or network, etc. Unfortunately the necessary priorities for such resources are not supported in Windows.

ProcessGovernor does not support 16 bit processes.

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ProcessGovernor Personal Edition

This version can only be used on workstations. Event logging is not supported.

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ProcessGovernor Server Edition

This version runs on servers as well as on workstations and supports event logging. However it does not support processes running in terminal server sessions.

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ProcessGovernor Terminal Server Edition

The Terminal Server Edition of ProcessGovernor runs without restrictions. Of course processes running in terminal server sessions are supported too.

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ProcessGovernor trial version

You want a trial Version? Get it here...