How can I tell Windows to always start certain binaries with low priority?

I want to demote the priority of a number of processes that are auto-started on my corporate XP machine. Is there a way that I can tell WinXP to always start a binary with low priority?

Use Prio. It allows you to save your preferences for processes so they will launch with that priority the next time.

Prio is free for personal use.

If you don't want to install additional software, you can make batch scripts which open the specified executable via the start command. The start command takes switches which specify the priority to start the process with.

The priority switches are the same as the priorities available through task manager:

/LOW
/NORMAL
/HIGH
/REALTIME
/ABOVENORMAL
/BELOWNORMAL

Example:

start /low cmd.exe

This would start a cmd.exe instance with low priority.