Breaking ReadFile() blocking - Named Pipe (Windows API)

Question

To simplify, this is a situation where a NamedPipe SERVER is waiting for a NamedPipe CLIENT to write to the pipe (using WriteFile())

The Windows API that is blocking

Answer 1

Asynchronous I/O operations do not have to block any thread if they use I/O Completion Ports. See: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365198(VS.85).aspx