Can some one help me understand the performance hit and how to improve it
based on the VS Option setting for
Projects and Solutions
Build and Run
maximum number of parallel builds

When set to 4 on a dual processor, dual core, hyperthreaded workstation
XP64) it takes 45 seconds or more to launch my solution (see discussion below)

When set to 2 on a single processor laptop, dual core and hyperthreaded
(XP32), it tales 6 seconds to start the same app.

When set to 2 on the dual processor workstation (XP64), the 45 seconds
improves to be 12 seconds, but is still slower than the laptop.

DISCUSSION:
The VS solution is the early stages of a Windows Form app (VB .Net). There
are currently 12 projects as part of the solution. As these become
finalized, only the in-progress projects would be in the solution being
worked on and the others in their finalized form just referenced to the
current DLL.

The timings shown above are the time between pressing F5 and when the
opening dialog of the application is displayed. Not much is done in the
application before the dialog is displayed so the timings represent VS build
/ VS application load work being done by the IDE.

I am trying to understand if this is an XP64 problem, VS configuration
problem or if I have to turn off hyperthreading in the BIOS so that Windows
only sees 2 processors. This would seem to indicate that XP64 or VS is not
handling the 4-processor multi-processor environment correctly.

The on-line documentation covering "Multiprocessor Builds" talks
specifically to this being a feature for C++ projects. Was it not intended
to also support VB or any other .Net language?


The workstation configuration being used was:
Dual 3Ghz Xeon Processors, Dual Core with Hyperthreading turned on
Memory - 4 Gb
Front Side Bus 400Mhz
Disk - multi-channel, separate controllers as RAID 5
Windows XP64 - SP1

The Laptop
2Ghz Zeon, Dual Core, Hyperthreading enabled
Memory 2Gb
FSB 533 Mhz
Disk: SATA 7200 RPM
Windows XP - SP2

Thanks in advance for all edicational input and suggestions for improvement.

--
NormD