Pro C# 2010 and the .NET 4 Platform, Fifth Edition

16.1. The Role of a Windows Process

The concept of a "process" has existed within Windows-based operating systems well before the release of the .NET platform. In simple terms, a process is a running program. However, formally speaking, a process is an operating system level concept used to describe a set of resources (such as external code libraries and the primary thread) and the necessary memory allocations used by a running application. For each *.exe loaded into memory, the OS creates a separate and isolated process for use during its lifetime.

Using this approach to application isolation, the result is a much more robust and stable runtime environment, given that the failure of one process does not affect the functioning of another. Furthermore, ...