DT> EnterCritSec is OK if your app does not have many threads (2-3 max). 
DT>If you have more than that, then you should use semaphores (local). 
DT>Critcal sections will stop ALL other threads in your process from 
DT>running, when most times all you need is to protect a single resource. 

   It really depends on how many threads will be blocked on the resource
and how many will be blocked on other things.  In one of my programs which
typically has about 10 threads I use critical sections because I believe
that it would waste CPU time if all threads used semaphores when accessing
certain data structures.  All I have to do is to use DosEnterCritSect()
whenever I'm doing something that requires exclusive access to the data and
I don't need to worry about semaphores in the other threads.  One thing
that makes it easy for me to do this is that all the threads are blocked on
IO for >99.9% of the time, this means that it's quite acceptable for a
thread to lock all the other threads out for a few milliseconds as they are
probably blocked anyway.

   A system call takes more CPU time than 1000 user-mode instructions.  The
fewer OS calls you make the faster your program will run and the lower the
pulse rating will be.


  cya
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