Question : Problem: how to optimise dual core processor use in XP pro

I have an AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual core processors 4200+ 2.21GHz, 2 gb ram and 1 tb total hard disk space.

The system is seing the dual core processor ok I presums as I took the abobe information about it from the system properties.

I realise that I could upgrde to XP 64bit or to Vista - however I have a lot of legacy that doesnt have 64 bit drivers and probably a fair number of useful programmes that come from 16 bit - So for now upgrade is not the option.  Are there any settings that can be safely tweaked in XP pro to make the best use of the dual processors, I suspect at the moment that virtually everything is being run in just one of them - though not sure how I could check this

Answer : Problem: how to optimise dual core processor use in XP pro

You will require software that supports dual-core technology - in a 32-bit environment.
Make sure that the AMD dual-core optimizer is installed:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/Setup.exe