A type of
multitasking in which the
process currently controlling the
CPU must offer control to other processes. It is called
cooperative because all
programs must cooperate for it to work. If one program does not cooperate, it can hog the CPU. In contrast,
preemptive multitasking forces
applications to share the CPU whether they want to or not. Versions 8.0-9.2.2 of
Macintosh OS and
Windows 3.x operating systems are based on cooperative multitasking, whereas
UNIX,
Windows 95,
Windows NT,
OS/2, and later versions of Mac OS are based on preemptive multitasking.
