[vox-tech] [OT] MS Windows nice

[Harold Lee]

Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> 1. Is there a cron for Windows?  I would like to run something like:
>
>       cd /path/to/application
>       ant create.reference.data
>
>    before coming into work.
>
>   
Look up the command "at". I think if you run "at help" on the command 
line, it'll help you out.

> 2. Is there a nice for Windows?
>
>       I don't think the ref data is built any faster when it has full
>       control of my system.  I really would like to read digg.com while
>       the data is being built.  Is there a way to nice a process in Windows?
>
>   
MS discourages people from playing around with process priorities 
because, in my experience, it is easy for processes to get CPU starved 
or to hog the CPU - not a lot of subtlety in the scheduler, I think. 
Better to just run it when you're not around.

My guess is that you're killing the disk, writing tons of data as fast 
as you can pull it over a gigabit ethernet - if that's the case, and you 
need to be able to use the computer meanwhile, you could always add a 
sleep() call (or Java equivalent) to wait a little while after each 
write to disk. Also look at how much data you're gathering before each 
write - maybe it'll help Windows if you build a larger buffer of binary 
data and do fewer, larger writes... just a thought.

-Harold