CPU Quota Limits Not Enforced

• Microsoft Win32 Application Programming Interface (API) included with:

      - Microsoft Windows NT versions 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, and 4.00
  

SUMMARY

On page 88 of "Inside Windows NT," Table 4-1 indicates that a process object contains a quota limit for the maximum amount of processor time that the process can use.

This limit is not enforced in Windows NT versions 3.1, 3.5x , or 4.0.

MORE INFORMATION

The key to understanding Windows NT thread scheduling and resultant application behavior is knowing the central algorithm used. This algorithm is very simple, and is the same one a number of other operating systems use. It is "run the highest priority thread ready." A list of ready threads or processes exists; it is often called the "dispatch queue" or "eligible queue." The queue entries are in order based on their individual priority. A hardware-driven real-time clock or interval timer will periodically interrupt, passing control to a device driver that calls the process or thread scheduler. The thread scheduler will take the highest priority entry from the queue and dispatch it to run.