The Starter thread runs on the Shell process and is mainly responsible for starting the Workplace process. It will automatically restart the Workplace process in the event that the:

• Workplace process might trap

• User code running on the Workplace process might trap.

In addition, the Starter thread is responsible for starting all applications as children of the first Shell process instead of children of the Workplace process. Thus, when the Workplace process needs to be restarted, all applications that were run from it continue to function normally, while the Workplace process is restarted.

Since applications that were initiated by a user action in the Workplace Shell are really started from this thread, when such applications are terminated, the Starter thread must pass a corresponding notification back to the Workplace process.