Pro Silverlight 5 in VB

Understanding Multithreading

When you program with threads, you write your code as though each thread is running independently. Behind the scenes, the Windows operating system gives each thread a brief unit of time (called a time slice) to perform some work, and then it freezes the thread in a state of suspended animation. A little later (perhaps only a few milliseconds), the operating system unfreezes the thread and allows it to perform a little more work.

This model of constant interruption is known as preemptive multitasking. It takes place completely outside the control of your program. Your application acts (for the most part) as though all the threads it has are running simultaneously, and each thread carries on as though it's an independent ...