Windows Service executing an executable

Question

I have a Windows Service that simply listens for certain events. Once triggered, the service executes a process (.exe).

My problem: On windows server 2003, this works great. CPU for the executable goes up to about 20% and it works at a reasonable speed.

On windows server 2008, it works 3 times slower (at least) and the CPU for the executable is about 1% if done the same way. However, simply running the executable (without the listening service doing it), it works just as fast as it does normally on windows server 2003.

This seems to be a problem with Windows Server 2008 not giving the same priority to the executable, yet nothing different can be seen on the Task Manager (other than CPU usage). It may also be something else altogether.

Any ideas what could solve this irritating problem?

Answer 1

have you explicitly specified the priority of the process when you dispatch to create a new process CreateProcess() - parameter dwCreationFlags -- if NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS (default) is specified it inherits from the parent process ?