There is a very rare instance that may happen under Windows 7 if you upgrade your processor from a single to a dual or a dual to a tri or a tri to quad core processor. Under Windows Task manager > Performance tab you may encounter only the previous amount of cores visible even if you have Task Manager > View > CPU history > One Graph per CPU checked off. This graph pane area which should show the equivalent amount of cores per graph is directly tied into the MSConfig > Boot tab > Advanced options > "Number of Processors" setting. You may not show the correct amount of cores in this MSConfig pull-down. Let me give an example: You install Windows 7 with a dual-core processor and have this option checked for "Number of Processors" (in Msconfig > Boot > Advanced options) and the amount set to "2" (for dual core). This setting is not mandatory to be set but some ppl do in order to force Task Manager to show 2 graphs (or 3). One graph for each processor. At a later point in time you upgrade to a Quad-core or Tri-Core processor. The OS will not read this extra core or have anything enabled to physically use this extra core(s) until the following are performed: Uncheck in MSConfig > Boot tab > Advanced Options > "Number of Processors" and exit MSConfig d/l and install an applet called EasyBCD 1.7.2 (or later, Google: EasyBCD) which supports many features of Windows 7. Go into Advanced Options in EasyBCD and select "Limit Widows to '0' CPUs (Leave 0 to reset)". Click "Apply Settings" and exit EasyBCD. NOTE: This will force the OS to reset the count to default for the amount of Cores you now have. There is possibly a boot setting that can be added that I may not be aware of to do this same function but this little applet works and does the same thing. Don't muck around with any other setting in this utility if you don't know what you are doing it may leave your computer unbootable and a complete reinstall or long repair may need to be performed. Just make sure this one setting is set to "0" Completely shutdown the OS (not reboot or restart or logout). Correctly Shutdown you computer so the it powers down. upon restart into the OS the Task Manager > Performance tab should now show the correct amount of per core graphs if you have the "One Graph per CPU" option selected. Yay your back in business =) Notes: Some of these discrepancies will appear if your OS is reading the incorrect amount of cores. Device Manager will show the correct amount of Cores for the PC after the new CPU is installed even tho Task Manager still shows the old amount of cores. This is why you need to preform these steps above to fix this disparity and enable the OS to work with the new additional core. CPU-Z (Google: CPUID CPU-Z) will show an incorrect amount of cores until you preform the above steps. SiSoft Sandra (Google: SiSoft Sandra) will show the correct amount of Cores for the PC after the new CPU is installed even tho Task Manager still shows the old amount of cores. This is why you need to preform these steps above to fix this disparity and enable the OS to work with the new additional core. Reinstalling Windows 7 with the "Upgrade" (not Custom Option) will not fix this issue until the above steps are performed. The reinstall should clear the "Number of Processors" setting in MSConfig but it doesn't! Hence the need to run the above steps and avoid a reinstall which takes greatly more time and still does not fix this issue. In a dual boot (XP/Win7) PC, the XP Task Manager will show the correct amount of Cores in Task Manager > Performance tab even tho the same place under Windows 7 will not! Hence the need to perform the above steps. This is a rare issue, but if you are upgrading CPUs in the future these are a very important steps to enable your Win7 OS to take advantage of this extra core you are buying. Even tho in places like Device Manager it will show the correct amount of cores the MSConfig setting will override the Device Manager only allow you to work with a lessor amount of cores thereby limiting your CPUs true potential preserving your good investment. Good Luck! I hope someone who encounters this issue finds their way here after a CPU upgrade or they may rip their hair out and I can tell you from experience I was making the Level 3 tech support at Microsoft rip their hair out when I found this issue lol I was getting an Experience Index value for Processor of 6.3 when this core was disabled and not showing up in Task Manager > Performance tab. Once the above steps were performed my Performance Index jumped to 6.9! My old Dual-Core CPU was an Experience Index of 6.1 to show you the difference a 3rd core can add to your system. In the future, once I start gently Overclocking my new Triple-core processor (once I get a better CPU cooler) It should exceed 7.2-7.4 or greater Experience Index. =) TCsenter wrote also: Some recommendations (make sure you are running as Administrator): Run MSConfig -> Change to Boot tab -> Advanced Options -> "Number of Processors", make sure there is no check mark. Delete processor entries listed in Device Manager, then reboot and allow Windows to redetect/reinstall them. In BIOS, check for an option named Max CPU ID Value or CPU ID Max Val and make sure its set to disabled . This option is only provided for OS prior to Windows 2000. Save and Exit BIOS. Check for a BIOS update for your system or motherboard. Confirm the CPU model is supported by the motherboard

How to Reset the Number of Processors-Win 7, without using Easy BCD Monday, May 02, 2016 2:12 PM How to reset the number of Processors in Windows 7 operating system - (procedure will vary slightly for later operating systems), without using Easy BCD. Start->Control Panel (Small Icons), click on System, in the left pane of the system dialog box, click on "Advanced system settings" to bring up the System Properties dialog box. On the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog box, click on "Environment Variables". Under System variables, left click "NUMBER_OF_P…" to highlight and click "Edit". In the "Edit System Variable" dialog box, change the "Variable value" to the desired number of processors and click "OK", as required, when closing the various dialog boxes. Restart your computer. Next; "Start", index "msconfig" in the search box - (or click on "System Configuration") to bring up the System Configuration dialog box. On the boot tab, click on "Advanced Options" to bring up the "BOOT Advanced Options" dialog box. Ensure that there is no checkmark in the "Number of processors" check box, click "OK" as required when closing the dialog boxes. Note; If the checkbox is selected, the system boots using only the number of processors shown in the drop down list. Additionally, if the amount of memory shown as being used in "Task Manager is incorrect, removing the checkmark in the "Maximum memory' checkbox allows the computer to reset the Maximum memory after the computer is restarted. The default settings on a new computer for both processor and memory in BOOT Advanced Options is; No checkmarks in the boxes. It is ok to put checkmarks in the boxes as long as you subsequently configure items correctly. If you configure incorrectly-(such as selecting the wrong amount of processor cores and placing a checkmark in the box), you will have to repeat the above steps starting with step 1. Restart the computer. After restarting the computer if, with no checkmark in the processor box, you observe a "Grayed Out" 1 listed for the amount of processors this is not necessarily of concern. For those to whom this is a concern, place a checkmark in the processor box, and select the maximum number of processors.

2 dual cores would still be considered a quad not "2 duals" but this is just a semantic and no sense beating a dead horse, so to speak. What? A quad-core processor is informally referred to as a single quad. If you could find a single solitary instance of anyone anywhere in the world ever referring to a quad core processor as two dual cores (excepting where the internal arrangement of the CPU is being discussed), I'll PayPal you $10. What would you call it if someone described "2 quad cores" or "two quad cores" = one eight-core processor? Or "two single cores" really means one dual core? Ridiculous. You don't have to like the customary nomenclature for these things. You just have to admit that you clearly aren't familiar with it. No, your mistaking my inability to be unfamiliar with technology with my familiarity with the ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Thanks for your condescending reply filled with inferences of your superiority that you know more about computers then the rest of us lowly peons, when I was actually speaking about colloquial English use of this terminology and NOT technology itself . I can assure you I am not incorrect here in what I wrote. We all appreciate your stellar example of linguistic geniusousness. I guess the part about "beating a dead horse" literally eluded you so you still decided to beat that horse. How obtuse!

Forget Windows 7, make Windows 10 the shining jewel it needs to be! lol You guys are on the right track with all the Windows 10 fixes in the past month that have made it a dream OS to work with. Keep at it!!! The first 6 months after Windows 10 release were a nightmare but finally it seems to be showing the promise it was touted to be. Good job with that! My dual boot machine has not had any boots into Windows 7 in over a month now. I am slowly weaning myself off of it. Which was hard because Windows 7 was the best OS Microsoft ever came out with. Hopefully Windows 10 will outperform it. When I say outperform I mean less tweaking to make it do basic things and more productivity. So far so good! I may wipe my Windows 7 partition soon because I find less need to even use it. I wish the release of Windows 10 was not so horrifically bad. You only get one chance to make a first impression ya know! Keep up the good work with Windows 10, I am finding it less of a pain and more of a joy to use with each day! That is not a back-handed compliment either.

Nothing in my May 2, 2016 post was meant to imply that you were incorrect. The post was supplied in order to supply an alternate method that could be used that did not require the use of Easy BCD. I try to supply information in a way so that even relatively inexperienced users can use it. The information supplied in this article enabled me to fix my own computer, so I felt compelled to enhance the information contained within this article. Thank you for your contributions to this article. As a side note, I did not know about Easy BCD before reading the posts contained within this article - It looks like a very handy program for those who desire to dual boot.

Yes.. this is a rare problem and a rare problem solver And this very very helpfull task... Thanks so much..

HOWTO: Get Windows 7 to detect your new multi-core processor

Anonymous

There is a very rare instance that may happen under Windows 7 if you upgrade

your processor from a single to a dual or a dual to a tri or a tri to quad core processor. Under Windows Task manager > Performance tab you may encounter only the previous amount of cores visible even if you have Task Manager > View > CPU history > One Graph per CPU checked off.

This graph pane area which should show the equivalent amount of cores per graph is directly tied into the MSConfig > Boot tab > Advanced options > "Number of Processors" setting. You may not show the correct amount of cores in this MSConfig pull-down.

Let me give an example:

You install Windows 7 with a dual-core processor and have this option checked for "Number of Processors" (in Msconfig > Boot > Advanced options) and the amount set to "2" (for dual core). This setting is not mandatory to be set but some ppl do in order to force Task Manager to show 2 graphs (or 3). One graph for each processor. At a later point in time you upgrade to a Quad-core or Tri-Core processor. The OS will not read this extra core or have anything enabled to physically use this extra core(s) until the following are performed:

Uncheck in MSConfig > Boot tab > Advanced Options > "Number of Processors" and exit MSConfig
d/l and install an applet called EasyBCD 1.7.2 (or later, Google: EasyBCD) which supports many features of Windows 7.
Go into Advanced Options in EasyBCD and select "Limit Widows to '0' CPUs (Leave 0 to reset)". Click "Apply Settings" and exit EasyBCD.

NOTE: This will force the OS to reset the count to default for the amount of Cores you now have. There is possibly a boot setting that can be added that I may not be aware of to do this same function but this little applet works and does the same thing. Don't muck around with any other setting in this utility if you don't know what you are doing it may leave your computer unbootable and a complete reinstall or long repair may need to be performed. Just make sure this one setting is set to "0"

Completely shutdown the OS (not reboot or restart or logout). Correctly Shutdown you computer so the it powers down.
upon restart into the OS the Task Manager > Performance tab should now show the correct amount of per core graphs if you have the "One Graph per CPU" option selected. Yay your back in business =)

Notes: Some of these discrepancies will appear if your OS is reading the incorrect amount of cores.

Device Manager will show the correct amount of Cores for the PC after the new CPU is installed even tho Task Manager still shows the old amount of cores. This is why you need to preform these steps above to fix this disparity and enable the OS to work with the new additional core.
CPU-Z (Google: CPUID CPU-Z) will show an incorrect amount of cores until you preform the above steps.
SiSoft Sandra (Google: SiSoft Sandra) will show the correct amount of Cores for the PC after the new CPU is installed even tho Task Manager still shows the old amount of cores. This is why you need to preform these steps above to fix this disparity and enable the OS to work with the new additional core.
Reinstalling Windows 7 with the "Upgrade" (not Custom Option) will not fix this issue until the above steps are performed. The reinstall should clear the "Number of Processors" setting in MSConfig but it doesn't! Hence the need to run the above steps and avoid a reinstall which takes greatly more time and still does not fix this issue.
In a dual boot (XP/Win7) PC, the XP Task Manager will show the correct amount of Cores in Task Manager > Performance tab even tho the same place under Windows 7 will not! Hence the need to perform the above steps.

This is a rare issue, but if you are upgrading CPUs in the future these are a very important steps to enable your Win7 OS to take advantage of this extra core you are buying. Even tho in places like Device Manager it will show the correct amount of cores the MSConfig setting will override the Device Manager only allow you to work with a lessor amount of cores thereby limiting your CPUs true potential preserving your good investment.

Good Luck! I hope someone who encounters this issue finds their way here after a CPU upgrade or they may rip their hair out and I can tell you from experience I was making the Level 3 tech support at Microsoft rip their hair out when I found this issue lol

I was getting an Experience Index value for Processor of 6.3 when this core was disabled and not showing up in Task Manager > Performance tab. Once the above steps were performed my Performance Index jumped to 6.9! My old Dual-Core CPU was an Experience Index of 6.1 to show you the difference a 3rd core can add to your system. In the future, once I start gently Overclocking my new Triple-core processor (once I get a better CPU cooler) It should exceed 7.2-7.4 or greater Experience Index. =)

TCsenter wrote also:

Some recommendations (make sure you are running as Administrator):

Run MSConfig -> Change to Boot tab -> Advanced Options -> "Number of Processors", make sure there is no check mark.
Delete processor entries listed in Device Manager, then reboot and allow Windows to redetect/reinstall them.
In BIOS, check for an option named Max CPU ID Value or CPU ID Max Val and make sure its set to disabled . This option is only provided for OS prior to Windows 2000. Save and Exit BIOS.
Check for a BIOS update for your system or motherboard.
Confirm the CPU model is supported by the motherboard

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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60 answers

Anonymous

2016-05-02T19:25:32+00:00
How to Reset the Number of Processors-Win 7, without using Easy BCD

Monday, May 02, 2016

2:12 PM
- How to reset the number of Processors in Windows 7 operating system - (procedure will vary slightly for later operating systems), without using Easy BCD.
1. Start->Control Panel (Small Icons), click on System, in the left pane of the system dialog box, click on "Advanced system settings" to bring up the System Properties dialog box.
2. On the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog box, click on "Environment Variables".
3. Under System variables, left click "NUMBER_OF_P…" to highlight and click "Edit".
4. In the "Edit System Variable" dialog box, change the "Variable value" to the desired number of processors and click "OK", as required, when closing the various dialog boxes.
5. Restart your computer.
6. Next; "Start", index "msconfig" in the search box - (or click on "System Configuration") to bring up the System Configuration dialog box. On the boot tab, click on "Advanced Options" to bring up the "BOOT Advanced Options" dialog box.
7. Ensure that there is no checkmark in the "Number of processors" check box, click "OK" as required when closing the dialog boxes.
- Note; If the checkbox is selected, the system boots using only the number of processors shown in the drop down list.
- Additionally, if the amount of memory shown as being used in "Task Manager is incorrect, removing the checkmark in the "Maximum memory' checkbox allows the computer to reset the Maximum memory after the computer is restarted.
- The default settings on a new computer for both processor and memory in BOOT Advanced Options is; No checkmarks in the boxes. It is ok to put checkmarks in the boxes as long as you subsequently configure items correctly. If you configure incorrectly-(such as selecting the wrong amount of processor cores and placing a checkmark in the box), you will have to repeat the above steps starting with step 1.
1. Restart the computer.
- After restarting the computer if, with no checkmark in the processor box, you observe a "Grayed Out" 1 listed for the amount of processors this is not necessarily of concern. For those to whom this is a concern, place a checkmark in the processor box, and select the maximum number of processors.
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Anonymous

2016-05-04T06:01:39+00:00

2 dual cores would still be considered a quad not "2 duals" but this is just a semantic and no sense beating a dead horse, so to speak.

What? A quad-core processor is informally referred to as a single quad. If you could find a single solitary instance of anyone anywhere in the world ever referring to a quad core processor as two dual cores (excepting where the internal arrangement of the CPU is being discussed), I'll PayPal you $10. What would you call it if someone described "2 quad cores" or "two quad cores" = one eight-core processor? Or "two single cores" really means one dual core? Ridiculous.

You don't have to like the customary nomenclature for these things. You just have to admit that you clearly aren't familiar with it.

No, your mistaking my inability to be unfamiliar with technology with my familiarity with the ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Thanks for your condescending reply filled with inferences of your superiority that you know more about computers then the rest of us lowly peons, when I was actually speaking about colloquial English use of this terminology and NOT technology itself. I can assure you I am not incorrect here in what I wrote. We all appreciate your stellar example of linguistic geniusousness.

I guess the part about "beating a dead horse" literally eluded you so you still decided to beat that horse. How obtuse!
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Anonymous

2016-05-04T06:14:03+00:00

Forget Windows 7, make Windows 10 the shining jewel it needs to be! lol

You guys are on the right track with all the Windows 10 fixes in the past month that have made it a dream OS to work with. Keep at it!!! The first 6 months after Windows 10 release were a nightmare but finally it seems to be showing the promise it was touted to be. Good job with that!

My dual boot machine has not had any boots into Windows 7 in over a month now. I am slowly weaning myself off of it. Which was hard because Windows 7 was the best OS Microsoft ever came out with. Hopefully Windows 10 will outperform it. When I say outperform I mean less tweaking to make it do basic things and more productivity. So far so good!

I may wipe my Windows 7 partition soon because I find less need to even use it. I wish the release of Windows 10 was not so horrifically bad. You only get one chance to make a first impression ya know! Keep up the good work with Windows 10, I am finding it less of a pain and more of a joy to use with each day! That is not a back-handed compliment either.
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Anonymous

2016-05-05T07:10:10+00:00

Nothing in my May 2, 2016 post was meant to imply that you were incorrect. The post was supplied in order to supply an alternate method that could be used that did not require the use of Easy BCD. I try to supply information in a way so that even relatively inexperienced users can use it. The information supplied in this article enabled me to fix my own computer, so I felt compelled to enhance the information contained within this article. Thank you for your contributions to this article. As a side note, I did not know about Easy BCD before reading the posts contained within this article - It looks like a very handy program for those who desire to dual boot.
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Anonymous

2016-11-30T17:51:56+00:00

Yes.. this is a rare problem and a rare problem solver

And this very very helpfull task... Thanks so much..
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