March 8th, 2018

What’s the difference between CreateTimerQueueTimer and SetThreadpoolTimer?

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

A customer wanted to know what the difference is between CreateTimerQueueTimer and SetThreadpoolTimer, and what factors they should consider when choosing between them. (The customer explained that their immediate need was to create a periodic timer that fires every five seconds. It is not critical that the timer fire exactly at five second intervals.)

The CreateTimerQueueTimer function is a wrapper that calls SetThreadpoolTimer under the covers, so at the end of the day, you’re using SetThreadpoolTimer whether you like it or not.

The CreateTimerQueueTimer function is just a compatibility function for programs written to the old thread pool API.

The customer thanked us for the explanation and decided to go with SetThreadpoolTimer.

Category
Old New Thing
Topics
Code

Author

Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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