Platform SDK: DLLs, Processes, and Threads |
The TerminateThread function terminates a thread.
BOOL TerminateThread( HANDLE hThread, // handle to thread DWORD dwExitCode // exit code );
Windows NT/2000: The handle must have THREAD_TERMINATE access. For more information, see Thread Security and Access Rights.
If the function succeeds, the return value is nonzero.
If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.
TerminateThread is used to cause a thread to exit. When this occurs, the target thread has no chance to execute any user-mode code and its initial stack is not deallocated. DLLs attached to the thread are not notified that the thread is terminating.
TerminateThread is a dangerous function that should only be used in the most extreme cases. You should call TerminateThread only if you know exactly what the target thread is doing, and you control all of the code that the target thread could possibly be running at the time of the termination. For example, TerminateThread can result in the following problems:
A thread cannot protect itself against TerminateThread, other than by controlling access to its handles. The thread handle returned by the CreateThread and CreateProcess functions has THREAD_TERMINATE access, so any caller holding one of these handles can terminate your thread.
If the target thread is the last thread of a process when this function is called, the thread's process is also terminated.
The state of the thread object becomes signaled, releasing any other threads that had been waiting for the thread to terminate. The thread's termination status changes from STILL_ACTIVE to the value of the dwExitCode parameter.
Terminating a thread does not necessarily remove the thread object from the system. A thread object is deleted when the last thread handle is closed.
Windows NT/2000: Requires Windows NT 3.1 or later.
Windows 95/98: Requires Windows 95 or later.
Header: Declared in Winbase.h; include Windows.h.
Library: Use Kernel32.lib.
Processes and Threads Overview, Process and Thread Functions, CreateProcess, CreateThread, ExitThread, GetExitCodeThread, OpenThread