What Operating System and Compiler?

Because C++ relies on the operating system to provide support for multithreaded programming, it is necessary to choose an operating system as the target for the multithreaded applications in this chapter. Because Windows is the most widely used operating system in the world, it is the operating system used in this chapter. However, much of the information can be generalized to any OS that supports multithreading.

Because Visual C++ is arguably the most widely used compiler for producing Windows programs, it is the compiler required by the examples in this chapter. The importance of this is made apparent in the following section. However, if you are using another compiler, the code can be easily adapted to accommodate it.