Win32 API Reference: Process and Thread Management

Overview

This section of the Win32 API provides functions for creating, managing, and synchronizing processes and threads. Understanding these concepts is fundamental to developing robust and efficient Windows applications.

Processes are independent instances of a program, each with its own memory space. Threads are lightweight units of execution within a process that share the process's memory space. Effective management of both is crucial for multitasking and concurrency.

Key Concepts

• Process Creation: Starting new instances of applications.
• Thread Creation: Launching concurrent execution paths within a process.
• Synchronization: Coordinating access to shared resources to prevent race conditions (e.g., mutexes, semaphores, events).
• Priority Management: Controlling the execution order of processes and threads.
• Inter-Process Communication (IPC): Mechanisms for processes to exchange data.
• Thread Pools: Efficiently managing a pool of worker threads for task execution.

Commonly Used Functions

Resources

• Microsoft Docs - Processes and Threads
• Microsoft Docs - Synchronization Objects
• Microsoft Docs - Thread Pools