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Is there a way to configure a Windows service process (e.g. squidNT, SQL Server, etc) to start automatically with low priority without manually changing process priority via Task Manager?

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Changing the priority of threads or processes is usually a bad idea, unless the code has been written to run at a different priority. Changing priorities adds "priority inversion" to the list of concurrency issues to avoid. –  Richard Sep 21 '09 at 9:12
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The Service Control Manager, which handles starting / stopping services, doesn't have any mechanism (in any version of Windows heretofore) to specify the priority on processes it starts.

Since you can modify the priority on an already-running process, your best bet might be to use a tool to do that.

I'm not aware of a Microsoft command-line tool to modify process priority, but the "PV" command-line too, available at http://www.teamcti.com/pview/prcview.htm has a function to set priority.

pv -pb process-name.exe

That would set "process-name.exe" to "Below Normal" priority.

If you can live with the process starting out at "Normal" priority until you get around to changing it, you could do so with a script running as a "Scheduled Task" to fire off every-so-often (in case the service gets bounced).

It's a quick and dirty hack, but I owe a lot of my fortune in life to quick and dirty hacks that get the job done!

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Maybe run a batch file to start the app and then set the process priority, with perhaps a short sleep in between, rather than running the app directly and then running another task to set the priority. Won't work for everything but worth a try. –  John Gardeniers Sep 21 '09 at 2:38
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The following might also work. Edit the ImagePath registry key, and use the start command from cmd.exe:

START ["title"] [/Dpath] [/I] [/MIN] [/MAX] [/SEPARATE | /SHARED] [/LOW | /NORMAL | /HIGH | /REALTIME | /ABOVENORMAL | /BELOWNORMAL] [/WAIT] [/B] [command/program] [parameters]

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