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Multitasking means the operating system supports more than one program at a time. Windows 95 and Windows 98 support pre-emptive multitasking, which gives the operating system the authority to suspend a program that is monopolizing a needed resource. Multiprocessing means that a computer has more than one processor. This is not anything you need to worry about for the OS Technologies exam, but the term does come up on the Core Hardware exam. Multithreading means that a single program has the ability to create (spawn is the technical term) several activities under its control that all run concurrently. The example usually given for this is a word processor that can run a repagination process while it is also running a spell checker and a grammer checker. Symmetrical multiprocessing Symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP) is the capability that enables an operating system to utilize more than one microprocessor on a single computer. SMP divides the work and assigns tasks to each of the different processors, which results in each processor getting better utilization. Windows NT Workstation supports two processors on the same PC, and Windows NT Server supports four to eight processors. The opposite of SMP is Asymmetrical Multiprocessing (ASMP), which assigns a particular program or portion of a program to a particular processor that runs the program to its end. |