Affinity Runner

Affinity Runner is an application you can use to launch processes with a specific priority. It also gives you the possibility to allocate the preferred number of CPU cores.

The tool isn't packed in a setup file, so you can copy the .exe to any part of the hard disk and just double-click it to launch the utility.

You can also store the file on a USB flash drive to seamlessly run Affinity Runner on any PC. However, you should make sure that the PC has .NET Framework installed or it won't work.

The interface is not particularly intuitive, but the main window has a clean layout. The process list is initially empty and can be populated with new entries.

To do this, it's necessary to set the full file path to the process (or use the integrated file browser), pick the process priority (real-time, high, above normal, normal, below normal, idle) as well as choose the number of processors. Optionally, you can enter command-line arguments and use absolute paths.

It's possible to add as many entries as you want to the list, edit properties or remove processes from the list, as well as to check the boxes of the process you want to run on the spot.

The software tool also features colors to help you spot the priority and CPU thread allocated to each process. Moreover, you can save the current settings and list of processes to file, so that you can later load it and pick up where you left off.

To sum it up, Affinity Runner comes bundled with a simple interface and approachable options to help you prioritize processes and manage their CPU threads before launching them. Although it hasn't received updates for a while, we didn't have any trouble getting it to work on newer Windows versions.