New processes inherit the priority of their parent. Threads have a priority which ranges from 1 to 31 with 8 being the user default and 31 being the highest. Priority 0 is reserved for system use. Only the administrator can set a processes priority to be above 15, normal users can set a process's priority in the 1 to 15 range in a two step process by first setting the process class and then setting the relative priority within the class. This is done using the Task Manager.
New processes inherit the priority of their creating process.
Real time processes are supported. Any real time process will have higher priority than all non real-time processes. Processes having priorities between 16 and 31 are real-time processes which are members of the realtime class. Threads that have already received some CPU time will have lower priority than other of the same priority which have not. This boost decays over time as the thread receives CPU time.