FIX: Two threads may deadlock when you use the STL map or set in a multithreaded application

Two threads can deadlock when one thread uses a map, multimap, set, or multiset class member that waits for a second thread and that uses another run-time object that requires synchronization.

The _Tree class in the <xtree> STL header, the basic data structure used for map and set, uses the same critical section to protect _Tree static data members as other run-time objects use to protect their private data.

Change the architecture of your application so that two threads do not use C run-time objects that use the same critical section. For instance, if your object contained in a map has a destructor that waits for a second thread to create an ostream-derived class, then change the architecture so that the destructor does not need to wait for the ostream-derived class to be constructed.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This bug was corrected in the latest service pack for Visual Studio 6.0.

For additional information about Visual Studio service packs, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:To download the latest Visual Studio service pack, visit the following Microsoft Web site: