Mutex

It is referred as Mutants when in the kernel.  Mutexes are global objects for syncronizing execution.  Mutex names are usually hard-coded because the name must be consistent if it is used by 2 processes or threads.  Only one thread can own a mutex at any one time.  Thread gains access to mutex using WaitForSingleObject.  ReleaseMutex call release the mutex after use.  CreateMutex function creates a mutex.  The other thread uses OpenMutex to obtain a handle to the mutex before using it.