nice

NAME

nice - Windows command-line utility to invoke a utility with a specific priority

SYNOPSIS

nice [-n increment] utility [argument...]
nice [-increment] utility [argument...]

DESCRIPTION

The nice(1w) utility invokes a utility with a scheduling priority if the user has the appropriate permission. (Scheduling priority is computed based on the base priority of the calling process and the specified increment.) If the user lacks the appropriate permission to increase the scheduling priority, a warning message is written to the standard error but will not prevent the invocation of the utility or affect the exit status.

To use nice, the user must have permission to increase scheduling priority. For information about how to grant this permission, refer to the Windows operating system documentation.

OPTIONS

The nice utility supports the following option:

-n: Specifies how to adjust the scheduling priority of the utility.

ARGUMENTS

The nice utility supports the following arguments:

increment: The increment is a positive or negative decimal integer that is used to modify the scheduling priority of the utility. Positive increment values cause a lower or unchanged scheduling priority. Negative increment values cause a higher or unchanged scheduling priority and require appropriate permissions.
utility: The name of the utility to be invoked.
argument: Any string to be supplied as an argument when invoking utility.

DIAGNOSTICS

Possible exit-status values are:

0: Successful completion
1: Failure
126: The utility was found but could not be invoked.
127: The utility could not be found.

Note

The scheduling priority is computed based on the base priority of the calling process and the increment specified. The utility is invoked with this resultant priority. If the resultant priority value exceeds the range (that is, it is above real time (32) or below idle (0)), utility is invoked with real-time or idle priority, as appropriate, and displays a warning message.

EXAMPLES

nice -n -3 myprog.exe

If the default base priority is normal (inherited from the calling process), myprog.exe is invoked with high priority in Windows NT 4.0, and above-normal priority in Windows 2000, subject to the user having appropriate permissions.

nice -n 3 myprog.exe

If the default base priority is normal (inherited from the calling process), myprog.exe is invoked with normal priority in Windows NT 4.0, and below-normal priority in Windows 2000.

nice -n -18 myprog.exe

If the default base priority is high (inherited from the calling process), myprog.exe is invoked with real-time priority in both Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, subject to the user having appropriate permissions. In this case, a warning message is displayed because the resultant priority value exceeds the maximum priority value specified by Windows NT.