Take out the space you put between START and /AFFINITY
There should be no space there and it will also cure the invalid switch errors too for XP users.

You can also have a batch file to do it. Create a text file in the game directory where simcity4.exe is and rename it to simcity4.bat.

edit into the batch file the following line:
START/AFFINITY 1 .\SIMCITY4.EXE

Now use the batch file as a shortcut to run the program. I know this works since I use it to run Everquest when I run both my accounts on two monitors at once.

For example, when my system starts up, it loads AVG and Spybot which both take a lot of processing resources during startup resulting in a very slow start while they both wrestle for dominion over the processor time. Since they will both use processor 1 as a default, processor 2 remains idle. Being able to define the default processor for these applications at boot up would eliminate a lot of this contention and streamline the boot process.

Unfortunately, these sort of programs cannot be executed from a batch process to load on startup… Or can they?

i.e.
CPU3 CPU2 CPU1 CPU0 Bin Hex
================================
OFF OFF OFF ON = 0001 = 1
OFF OFF ON OFF = 0010 = 2
OFF OFF ON ON = 0011 = 3
OFF ON OFF OFF = 0100 = 4
OFF ON OFF ON = 0101 = 5 confirmed via task manager
OFF ON ON OFF = 0110 = 6
OFF ON ON ON = 0111 = 7
ON OFF OFF OFF = 1000 = 8
ON OFF OFF ON = 1001 = 9
ON OFF ON OFF = 1010 = A confirmed via task manager
ON OFF ON ON = 1011 = B
ON ON OFF OFF = 1100 = C
ON ON OFF ON = 1101 = D
ON ON ON OFF = 1110 = E confirmed via task manager
ON ON ON ON = 1111 = F

Of course, the CPU on task mananager is listed left to right, so now you have to flip all of the above.

HEX 30 = Binary 110000 = CPU5 CPU4, but I ONLY have a quad core, so I cannot confirm this works or not.

Then create a .BAT file that contains this command to start the app on CPU1 and CPU3:
REM MY BATCH FILE
START/AFFINITY A .\”some executable name.exe”

Where .\ denotes the current directory, and if there are any spaces between the names, put the whole thing in “”.

If you need to add /D and full path:
REM MY BATCH FILE
START/AFFINITY A /D C:\”Program Files”\”some app folder” C:\”Program Files”\”some app folder”\”some app.exe”

Notice that each folder names are encased in “” betwen the \’s. From my experience I found this following does not work:
START/AFFINITY A /D “C:\Program Files\some app folder” “C:\Program Files\some app folder\some app.exe”

You can create a shortcut to the batch file, and right click and select “Run As Administrator” as needed. It’s too bad the START command doesn’t offer this option…

Now script/batch till you drop!

I’d like to set the affinity before windows starts up instead of after. Seems like I need something like the app Mr X suggested that loads as a service on boot, then configure it to set the affinity of stuff that loads during startup.

Unless someone else knows a way to force this without a bootable app.

Target: “c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe /C start /affinity 10 Wow.exe”
Start in: “C:\program files\world of warcraft\”

How do i make it run on all 4 cores?