The &xwp; "Worker" thread does all kinds of background work which takes too long to be running on the main GUI thread of the WPS. These tasks are offloaded to the Worker thread in order not to block the user interface.

As you might know, &os2; is a "multithreading" operating system, which means that a program can execute several tasks simultaneaously. &xwp; uses its "Worker" thread (which is just a stupid, not a technical description) to prevent certain time-consuming tasks from blocking your system. If &xwp; processed these tasks without the Worker thread, the WPS would not react to anything until the task is completed.

The Worker thread runs at "idle time" priority, which means that it only starts working if your system has nothing else to do. This way, your system is not slowed down at all although some time-consuming tasks might be performed in the background. You can change the Worker thread's default priority on the "Paranoia" page in the "&xwp; Setup" object.

Note that the Worker thread does some things which are not documented by IBM, especially keeping track of all objects that the WPS keeps in its internal buffers. If you feel that &xwp; is not working properly, you might try to disable the thread on the "Paranoia" page.

Among other things, the &xwp; worker thread is responsible for the following:

This setting only has an effect after a reboot or a Desktop restart. The &xwp; Worker thread will not be stopped or restarted when you change this setting.