Freeze / Hang

When an application 'freezes', or 'hangs,' it no longer accepts any input, whether from the keyboard or the mouse. Occasionally, a frozen application will return to normal: the problem may have been related to (say) a disk write command that did not execute, resulting in an time out, but with control retuned to the user.

Applications which freeze may also crash the operating system, especially of a PC. However, the latest release of Windows® (the Millennium Edition) resolves this problem. Freezes followed by the need to re-boot and the possible loss of all current data are becoming less common.