If timeout is zero, the method does not block. It tests the state of the wait handles and returns immediately.

System.Threading.AbandonedMutexException is new in the .NET Framework version 2.0. In previous versions, the erload:System.Threading.WaitHandle.WaitAny method returns true if the wait completes because a mutex is abandoned. An abandoned mutex often indicates a serious coding error. In the case of a system-wide mutex, it might indicate that an application has been terminated abruptly (for example, by using Windows Task Manager). The exception contains information useful for debugging.

The erload:System.Threading.WaitHandle.WaitAny method throws an System.Threading.AbandonedMutexException only when the wait completes because of an abandoned mutex. If waitHandles contains a released mutex with a lower index number than the abandoned mutex, the erload:System.Threading.WaitHandle.WaitAny method completes normally and the exception is not thrown.

This method returns when the wait terminates, either when any of the handles are signaled or when a time-out occurs. If more than one object becomes signaled during the call, the return value is the array index of the signaled object with the smallest index value of all the signaled objects. On some implementations, if more that 64 handles are passed, a NotSupportedException is thrown.

The maximum value for timeout is int.MaxValue.

Notes on Exiting the Context

The exitContext parameter has no effect unless the WaitHandle.WaitAny(WaitHandle[], TimeSpan, bool) method is called from inside a nondefault managed context. This can happen if your thread is inside a call to an instance of a class derived from ContextBoundObject. Even if you are currently executing a method on a class that does not derive from ContextBoundObject, like string, you can be in a nondefault context if a ContextBoundObject is on your stack in the current application domain.

When your code is executing in a nondefault context, specifying true for exitContext causes the thread to exit the nondefault managed context (that is, to transition to the default context) before executing the WaitHandle.WaitAny(WaitHandle[], TimeSpan, bool) method. The thread returns to the original nondefault context after the call to the WaitHandle.WaitAny(WaitHandle[], TimeSpan, bool) method completes.

This can be useful when the context-bound class has System.Runtime.Remoting.Contexts.SynchronizationAttribute. In that case, all calls to members of the class are automatically synchronized, and the synchronization domain is the entire body of code for the class. If code in the call stack of a member calls the WaitHandle.WaitAny(WaitHandle[], TimeSpan, bool) method and specifies true for exitContext, the thread exits the synchronization domain, allowing a thread that is blocked on a call to any member of the object to proceed. When the WaitHandle.WaitAny(WaitHandle[], TimeSpan, bool) method returns, the thread that made the call must wait to reenter the synchronization domain.