What is the difference between a process and a thread?
The major difference between threads and processes is:
- Threads share the address space of the process that created it; processes have their own address space.
- Threads have direct access to the data segment of its process; processes have their own copy of the data segment of the parent process.
- Threads can directly communicate with other threads of its process; processes must use interprocess communication to communicate with sibling processes.
- Threads have almost no overhead; processes have considerable overhead.
- New threads are easily created; new processes require duplication of the parent process.
- Threads can exercise considerable control over threads of the same process; processes can only exercise control over child processes.
- Changes to the main thread (cancellation, priority change, etc.) may affect the behavior of the other threads of the process; changes to the parent process does not affect child processes.
From: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/200469/what-is-the-difference-between-a-process-and-a-thread