Difference Between Program and Process

Difference Between Program and Process in tabular form

Contents

1 Difference Between Program and Process in tabular form
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Comparison Between Program and Process

The Major Difference Between Program and Process is that A program is a set of instructions. and A process is a program in execution.

Comparison Chart

PROGRAM	PROCESS
A program is a set of instructions.	A process is a program in execution.
A program is a passive/ static entity.	A process is an active/ dynamic entity.
A program has a longer life span. It is stored on disk forever.	A process has a limited life span. It is created when execution starts and terminated as execution is finished.
A program is stored on a disk in some file. It does not contain any other resource.	A process contains various resources like memory address, disk, printer, etc… as per requirements.
A program requires memory space on a disk to store all instructions.	A process contains a memory address which is called address space.
Longer Lifespan	Limited Lifespan

Process

The process is a program under execution.
It is an instance of an executing program, including the current values of the program counter, registers & variables.
The process is an abstraction of a running program.

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