Signals on Win32 (was RE: [HACKERS] [PATCHES] fork/exec patch)

Zeugswetter Andreas wrote:
> How about the typical answer on Windows ? Create an invisible Window
> with an Event Handler and pass it a windows message ?

The issue at hand is not how the signal is sent, but the behavior taken
once it arrives. Using messages bypasses the thread problem but
requires PeekMessage() to be put in various places to check if there is
a signal waiting to be acted on, which is really any easier then
SleepEx(0), although, it does bypass the threading issues.

The other main issue with messages is that processes other than the
postmaster can issue them to a backend, which has some security
implications. Also, there is a series of rather nasty exploits based on
WM_TIMER which have only been fixed in recent versions of windows.

Merlin