C++ thread to separate process

Question

Is there any way I can have a thread branch off into its own independent process? I know there's the CreateProcess function but as far as I can tell, you can only run external applications with it. Is what I'm asking for at all possible?

Answer 1

It is possible.

You could call CreateProcess with a dummy application and with the CREATE_SUSPENDED flag so it doesn't run immediately. Then you can use VirtualAllocEx to allocate memory space in the created process and WriteProcessMemory to write code and data into it. And then unsuspend the process to run it.

You can also use CreateRemoteThread to create a process running within the context of another existing process.

So what you want to do is possible, but it's really not a simple thing to do in a windows environment so you'd have to have a really good reason to want to do it.

Answer 2

That's not possible under Windows. On Posix platforms the desired effect could be achieved by fork() ing.