Summary

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We have covered a wide range of topics in this chapter. We covered the basics of what multitasking is and how it is accomplished by the use of threads. We established that multitasking and free threading are not the same thing. We described processes and how they isolate data from other applications. We also described the function of threads in an operating system like Windows. You now know that Windows interrupts threads to grant execution time to other threads for a brief period. That brief period is called a time slice or quantum. We described the function of thread priorities and the different levels of these priorities, and that threads will inherit their parent process's priority by default.

We also described how the .NET runtime monitors threads created in the .NET environment and additionally any unmanaged threads that execute managed code. We described the support for threading in the .NET Framework. The System.AppDomain class provides an additional layer of logical data isolation on top of the physical process data isolation. We described how threads could cross easily from one AppDomain to another. Additionally, we saw how an AppDomain doesn't necessarily have its own thread as all processes do.

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