Why don’t we run the taskbar and Task Manager at high priority, so they can remain responsive?

This article discusses the challenges of running the taskbar and Task Manager at high priority in a CPU-starved environment. It explains how priority management can lead to issues with shared resources, making it difficult to maintain responsiveness.

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If a system becomes CPU-starved, all processes begin to suffer. This includes the taskbar and Task Manager, even though they are often the tools you want to use to stop whatever it is that’s making your system suffer. Why can’t we run the taskbar and Task Manager at high priority?

The catch with running anything at high priority is that unless you have been very careful to avoid it, you will eventually run into a shared resource that you will have to wait for, and you are now stuck. Your priority checkout pass gets you to the front of the line, but if the person at the register has a large shopping cart full of groceries, you just have to wait until they are done before you get your chance.

Even if the code that protects the shared resource is careful to avoid priority inversion by…

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