What to do with extra prosessor with Windows 8.1 (non-professional)?

06
2014-04
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    My desktop workstation has two quad core processors. I recently installed Windows 8.1, and I found that without the Professional version of Windows 8 you can only use one socket here:

    How many physical processors does Windows 8 Support?

    So I have a full quad-core CPU that is completely unused, but I don't want to buy a professional license...

    So my question is: does any one know of something that I can do with this processor? Can I use it for something else while I am running Windows?

    Thanks in advance,

    Mark

    • Answers
  • techie007

    Here's one example of how you can make use of both CPUs:

    The hypervisor will use both CPUs to provide resources for the VMs.


    • Related Question

    How to kill/restart automatically a specific Windows application if it begins taking 100% CPU?
  • Esko Luontola

    I have one program running in the background (so I can use a remote controller with my PC) but every now and then the program crashes and begins using 100% CPU (I have quad-core, so it's 25% CPU usage). When that happens, the program needs to be killed and restarted.

    Is there a program for Windows, which can be used to detect automatically that a specific application hogs all the CPU, and would then automatically kill and restart that application?


    • Related Answers
  • 8088

    If 100% CPU load means that it's stuck/unresponsive than the guys from Technospot have a solution for you. Note: it doesn't restart it directly :-(

    Steps to set auto kill not responding programs:

    • Backup your registry first.
    • Go to Run and enter “Regedit“.
    • Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
    • Here you will find a string called as “Auto End Task“, set its value to “1” by double clicking it. This means any hung program will be killed instantaneously.
    • Now suppose if you want to give some time, as some programs come back to normal in few minutes, Find a key called as “WaitToKillAppTimeout“, change the value to the value you want. You have to enter value in milliseconds though.

    See the image for a clear view of what you are going to do

    enter image description here

    Technize has two other inventive ways to kill apps (no restart though)

    Kill

    Kill is a little app written with AutoHotkeys which does the work as its name suggests. It can kill any process or application with only one click. If the application stops responding, just double click the Kill app and then click on the window that you want to terminate.

    xKill

    xKill is a similar app to Kill but it’s more advanced in the sense that it can run in the system tray and has a shortcut to activate kill mode. So if an application is not responding, just press Ctrl – Alt – BackSpace. This will activate the kill mode and clicking on any window will terminate that process. To deactivate the kill mode without killing any app, just press Esc.

  • arathorn

    Check out Process Tamer.

  • Gammy Knee

    If the program genuinely enters the "not responding" state in Windows terms, ie. stops responding to Windows messages, then you could try PTFB Pro. It has an option to detect when a program stops responding, kill it, and restart it automatically.