multiprocessor support in XP Pro

Can someone point me to an article or post that details the granularity of multicpu support that XP has?
I'm looking to understand how the os natively (or via drivers such as AMD's) parses the various background processes up and balances them across the cpus. How does it handle app's? i.e. does it only spread the application across the cpus if the application is multi-cpu aware?
Any gotcha's? Any "tricks" to allow it to better handle high-cpu intensive tasks vs low-cup tasks in the optimal manner?
thanks

 

You must install the proper drivers & all updates from Microsoft (specially AMD X2 updates) to enable both the CPUs.

 

By "proper drivers from Microsoft" can you give me a pointer? I have XP Pro SP2 but nothing else. i assumed that XP Pro came with the required drivers, kernal support, etc. no?

btw - I ran across this info in my search. seems these gaming guys are already up on this issue ... anybody here want to comment on what they propose?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=81429

thanks

 

This is the driver from AMD.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/amdcpu.exe

I have never felt the need to edit my registry. YMMV.