Windows® via C/C++, Fifth Edition

The CreateThread Function

We’ve already discussed how a process’ primary thread comes into being when CreateProcess is called. If you want to create one or more secondary threads, you simply have an already running thread call CreateThread:

HANDLE CreateThread(
   PSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES psa,
   DWORD cbStackSize,
   PTHREAD_START_ROUTINE pfnStartAddr,
   PVOID pvParam,
   DWORD dwCreateFlags,
   PDWORD pdwThreadID);

When CreateThread is called, the system creates a thread kernel object. This thread kernel object is not the thread itself but a small data structure that the operating system uses to manage the thread. You can think of the thread kernel object as a small data structure that consists of statistical information about the thread. This is identical to the ...