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Increase scheduling priority

  • Article

Applies to

  • Windows 11
  • Windows 10

Describes the best practices, location, values, policy management, and security considerations for the Increase scheduling priority security policy setting.

Reference

This policy setting determines which user accounts can increase the base priority class of a process. It is not a privileged operation to increase relative priority within a priority class. This user right is not required by administrative tools that are supplied with the operating system, but it might be required by software development tools.

Specifically, this security setting determines which accounts can use a process with Write Property access to another process to increase the run priority that is assigned to the other process. A user with this privilege can change the scheduling priority of a process through the Task Manager user interface.

Constant: SeIncreaseBasePriorityPrivilege

Possible values

  • User-defined list of accounts
  • Not defined
  • Administrators

Best practices

  • Retain the default value as the only accounts responsible for controlling process scheduling priorities.

Location

Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\User Rights Assignment

Policy management

This section describes features, tools, and guidance to help you manage this policy.

A restart of the computer is not required for this policy setting to be effective.

Any change to the user rights assignment for an account becomes effective the next time the owner of the account logs on.

Group Policy

Settings are applied in the following order through a Group Policy Object (GPO), which will overwrite settings on the local computer at the next Group Policy update:

  1. Local policy settings
  2. Site policy settings
  3. Domain policy settings
  4. OU policy settings

When a local setting is greyed out, it indicates that a GPO currently controls that setting.

Security considerations

This section describes how an attacker might exploit a feature or its configuration, how to implement the countermeasure, and the possible negative consequences of countermeasure implementation.

Vulnerability

A user who is assigned this user right could increase the scheduling priority of a process to Real-Time, which would leave little processing time for all other processes and could lead to a denial-of-service condition.

Countermeasure

Verify that only Administrators and Window Manager\Window Manager Group have the Increase scheduling priority user right assigned to them.

Potential impact

None. Restricting the Increase scheduling priority user right to members of the Administrators group and Window Manager\Window Manager Group is the default configuration.

Warning

If you remove Window Manager\Window Manager Group from the Increase scheduling priority user right, certain applications and computers do not function correctly. In particular, the INK workspace does not function correctly on unified memory architecture (UMA) laptop and desktop computers that run Windows 10, version 1903 (or later) and that use the Intel GFX driver.

On affected computers, the display blinks when users draw on INK workspaces such as those that are used by Microsoft Edge, Microsoft PowerPoint, or Microsoft OneNote. The blinking occurs because the inking-related processes repeatedly try to use the Real-Time priority, but are denied permission.