If Music is playing (doesn't matter which player I use), when I open Task
Manager (mostly noticeable on the processess tab, the player starts dropping
audio samples.

I tried the built-in sound card; Creative Audigy 4, and also Creative X-fi
Extreme Music. But I still have the same problem, so it is NOT related to
the sound card.
This seems to be related to the high-CPU priority that Task Manager is set
to run with. If I change the priority to low the playback will be smooth.
Other programs running with high priority like SysInternals' Process
Explorer cause a large amount of dropped audio samples at startup.

Q1. Is there any known workaround for this issue?
Q2. Is it possible to configure the Windows Audio service to use High or
Realtime CPU priority?
Q3. Is it possible to configure the audio sub-system to use larger audio
buffers in order to prevent dropping samples?

Q4. Is there any option relative to CPU scheduling and or intervals like
this one (from XP's boot.ini file):
/TIMERES=
{
Sets the resolution of the system timer on the standard x86 multiprocessor
HAL (Halmps.dll). The argument is a number interpreted in hundreds of
nanoseconds, but the rate is set to the closest resolution the HAL supports
that isn't larger than the one requested. The HAL supports the following
resolutions: Hundreds of nanoseconds Milliseconds (ms) 9766 0.98 19532 2.00
39063 3.90 78125 7.80 The default resolution is 7.8 ms. The system timer
resolution affects the resolution of waitable timers. Example:
/TIMERES=21000 would set the timer to a resolution of 2.0 ms.
}


Thank You for any Help!
George