In computing, the Win32 Thread Information Block (TIB) is a data structure in Win32 on x86 that stores info about the currently running thread. This structure is also known as the Thread Environment Block (TEB).
The TIB is officially undocumented for Windows 9x. The Windows NT series DDK includes a struct NT_TIB in winnt.h that documents the subsystem independent part. Wine includes declarations for the extended (subsystem-specific part of) TIB. Yet so many Win32 programs use these undocumented fields that they are effectively a part of the API. The first field, in particular, is directly referenced by the code produced by Microsoft's own compiler.
The TIB can be used to get a lot of information on the process without calling Win32 API. Examples include emulating GetLastError, GetVersion. Through the pointer to the PEB one can obtain access to the import tables (IAT), process startup arguments, image name, etc.
Read more about Win32 Thread Information Block: Contents of The TIB, Accessing The TIB
Famous quotes containing the words thread, information and/or block:
“A sleeping man holds in a circle around him the thread of the hours, the order of years and of worlds. He consults them instinctively upon awaking and in one second reads in them the point of the earth that he occupies, the time past until his arousal; but their ranks can be mingled or broken.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“The family circle has widened. The worldpool of information fathered by the electric media—movies, Telstar, flight—far surpasses any possible influence mom and dad can now bring to bear. Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world’s a sage.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“No contact with savage Indian tribes has ever daunted me more than the morning I spent with an old lady swathed in woolies who compared herself to a rotten herring encased in a block of ice.”
—Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908)