Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) Practice Exam 2025 – All-in-One Guide to Mastering Your Certification!

Multitasking allows both lightweight and heavyweight processes to run simultaneously on a CPU. However, in the context of operating systems, heavyweight processes are typically associated with more significant resource requirements and a higher level of memory allocation compared to lightweight processes.

Heavyweight processes refer to traditional processes that run independently and have their own memory space. They are capable of managing their own resources, which can include file handles, device handles, and so forth. Given that multitasking is designed to facilitate this independence and concurrent execution of processes, it is primarily the heavyweight processes that exemplify the typical use case where multitasking becomes essential, especially in systems requiring efficient resource management and utilization.

Lightweight processes, sometimes referred to as threads, share the same address space but are considered less independent compared to heavyweight processes. While multitasking also accommodates lightweight processes, the distinction between them reveals that heavyweight processes are generally more integral to the concept of multitasking as they operate in more isolated environments that necessitate comprehensive management by the CPU.

In terms of the other options, background and foreground processes refer to the state or visibility of processes rather than their resource intensity. Background processes run without user interaction, while foreground processes are those that are currently being interacted with. Therefore, the term "heavyweight