¶ … resource ownership, namely a process that includes a virtual address space to hold the process image. The process is the key to the system. Each process is constantly in one of three stages: Ready, Running, or Blocked. The operating system keeps track of its state and manages its movement amongst the various states. It is in charge of operating, managing, and terminating the various processes as well as seeing that its activities are coordinated, managing conflicting demands, and allocating system resources to the processes. A running process can also be interrupted either by an even outside the process (an "interrupt') or by execution of the operating system.
The two main elements of the process are the program code and the set of data that is connected with that code. Every process also contains the following elements:
Identifier -- a unique tag that separates it from other processes
State -- i.e. running, ready or blocked
Priority level
Program counter -- the address of the next instruction in the program to be performed
Memory pointers -- pointers to the program code with related data
Context data -- data that is contained in registers in the processor whilst the process is running
I/O status information -- system requests and devices that are connected with the process
Accounting information -- for instance the amount of processor time and clock time used.
All of the information listed above is stored within the "process control block" which can handle and enable multiple processes and simultaneous multiprocessing (Stalings, 152).
Windows, in contradictions to Linux, distinguishes between processes and threads with the latter (see later) referring to program execution. Doing so may lead to improved efficiency of system and better coding.
The Windows...
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