Windows Internals, Part 1: System architecture, processes, threads, memory management, and more, Seventh Edition

Chapter 3. Processes and jobs

In this chapter, we’ll explain the data structures and algorithms that deal with processes and jobs in Windows. First we’ll take a general look at process creation. Then we’ll examine the internal structures that make up a process. Next we’ll look at protected processes and how they differ from non-protected ones. After that we outline the steps involved in creating a process (and its initial thread). The chapter concludes with a description of jobs.

Because processes touch so many components in Windows, a number of terms and data structures (such as working sets, threads, objects and handles, system memory heaps, and so on) are referred to in this chapter but are explained in detail elsewhere in the book. To fully ...