Correcting Windows 7 Pro core count

garydale

garydale

Member
I converted an old HD to a disk image and am running it as a VM on my home server (Debian/Stable running Samba4). The new host has a Ryzen 5 6-core, 12 thread processor while the old physical machine only had a 2 core, 2 thread processor. While Device Manager shows the actual number of cores/threads I allow for it, Windows Properties and Task Manager only show the original 2. I believe this is the number Windows actually uses.

I've tried various "fixes" for this but so far they have all failed. The most recommended one is to use EasyBCD to set the CPU count to 0 and reboot, but EasyBCD says I'm running business and won't let me access that feature. Like most home users, I don't really have a lot of use for EasyBCD so I'm not eager to buy a business license on the chance it may actually fix this one problem.

Is there a registry entry or some file that needs modifying to do what EasyBCD does to change the core count?

Tried a registry edit (local machine hardware) to remove the 2 CPUs and FPUs then rebooted. Didn't work. Windows booted up again with the registry entries reinstated. Windows seems quite stubborn about not increasing the number of cores an install started with.
 
No. you need to enable Hyperthreading in the BIOS. On mine that would entail clicking the Del button when "Post" first appears during boot.
 
Sorry, not even close. This is a virtual machine and the host has an AMD processor. Hyperthreading is an Intel thing and doesn't pertain to AMD. Moreover, the core count is set by the VM's parameters, not by the underlying hardware. I could even allocate more cores than the host has, though there isn't much point to that. The VM also doesn't (can't) distinguish between threads and cores.

As far as it is concerned, it's got an 8-core processor. This is demonstrated by its Device Manager showing the number of processors I've allocated. The problem is strictly within Windows 7 Pro not wanting to recognize what its own Device Manager detects.
 
Sorry, AMD call it Clustered Multithreading. CMT or similar. It's been years since I had a non-Intel processor.
Well in that case I don't know if there's a solution since we can't advise people to meddle with the software behind the scenes.

I'll ask my colleague @Terry60 to see if he has more knowledge on this.
 
One of the benefits of a virtual machine is that if I screw it up, I can reset to an earlier snapshot. I took one immediately before trying to remove the 2 processors in the registry. I didn't need to roll it back but I could have if Windows didn't fix it.
 
This isn't the first thread I've seen where someone mentions that features are disabled in the free version of EasyBCD.
I've no idea why this happens, as the free version I use (from the normal download URL) has everything working and I've never seen a Neosmart statement that the free version is restricted in any way.
I'm not sure if there's some glitch occurring if the user registers the download, which is a step I always skip (I've downloaded hundreds of different builds of various products over the many years since I first came here and that would be a bit superfluous). I've suspected that maybe that causes the user to be flagged as commercial, but I have no experience (or hence evidence) of that.
Are you saying that the feature is "greyed out", or have you tried ticking the box and received a subsequent message ?
 
Just to be clear, I downloaded EasyBCD from the NeoSmart site. I did register as a free user. I'm just re-installing so I can give you a blow by blow detail:
1) on the first startup I get a message stating that "A product license is required to use EasyBCD in a commercial environment. Would you like to purchase one now? Note that most features will be unavailable without a license." I'm not sure how EasyBCD decides that it's in a commercial environment. It may be that I am running Windows 7 Pro, or that I log into a Samba domain server, or something else entirely.
2) After I click no, it warns me that I'm booting in EFI mode so many of EasyBCD's multi-booting features cannot be used....
3) Finally in EasyBCD, I click on Advance Settings | Developer and check the Windows CPU/core limit box, with the value set to 0. When I click on Save Settings I get a box telling me "This feature is unavailable without a product license. Would you like to purchase a license now?"

The crux of the problem seems to be that EasyBCD makes a determination that the system it is installed on is commercial and therefore restricts access to features. Now I admit I was a systems professional but I'm retired now. My network is probably complex and well provisioned by home networking standards but that's me.
 
That step 1) has never happened to me and is obviously the source of the problem.
I don't know why you (and others) see it and I never have.
I don't imagine it has anything to do with your using W7 pro, as I'm using Enterprise which would probably look even more like a commercial environment (it isn't).
Step 2) is standard on UEFI and isn't a downgrading of EasyBCD capability, merely a statement of fact that some things you can do in an MBR environment have been removed from UEFI by MS, hence Easy "greys" them.
The only person who can answer why 1) happens is the author. I suspect it's an unintended glitch which has been overlooked.
 
Are you running a Windows Domain & using Domain logins? Or possibly it is an artifact of my running in a VM. The fact that my domain controller is also the host to the VM may add another wrinkle...
 
I'm not sure if I'm posting to air or not since I can no longer find this thread through a search but I can seem to get to it through the notification link.

The CPU count problem appears to be related to the VM setup. It's taking logical cpus (cores/threads) as physical cpus and Windows is limiting me to 2.

I'm still not sure what is causing EasyBCD to identify me as a commercial entity. Even when I drop the cpu count down to 1, it still says I need a commercial license. However, since it looks like this is a problem EasyBCD can't fix, I'm not interested in why it thinks I'm a business anymore.
 
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