Abstract: Described herein is a system for controlling background execution of an application based on a stored policy. The stored policy can be defined by an enterprise administrator. The policy controls an ability of an application to execute in the background. The system includes a background access manager component that, in response to a request to execute in the background received from the application, determines whether or not to allow the application to execute in the background based upon the policy, a user-configured master control policy and/or relevant system state.

Abstract: The subject disclosure is directed towards a technology by which background application code (e.g., provided by third-party developers) runs on a mobile device in a way that is constrained with respect to resource usage. A resource manager processes a resource reservation request for background code, to determine whether the requested resources meet constraint criteria for that type of background code. If the criteria are met and the resources are available, the resources are reserved, whereby the background code is ensured priority access to its reserved resources. As a result, a properly coded background application that executes within its constraints will not experience glitches or other problems (e.g., unexpected termination) and thereby provide a good user experience.

Abstract: The subject disclosure is directed towards a technology by which background application code (e.g., provided by third-party developers) runs on a mobile device in a way that is constrained with respect to resource usage. A resource manager processes a resource reservation request for background code, to determine whether the requested resources meet constraint criteria for that type of background code. If the criteria are met and the resources are available, the resources are reserved, whereby the background code is ensured priority access to its reserved resources. As a result, a properly coded background application that executes within its constraints will not experience glitches or other problems (e.g., unexpected termination) and thereby provide a good user experience.

Abstract: The subject disclosure is directed towards a technology in which a mobile device maintains an application in a dormant state in which the application's process is not terminated and remains in memory, but the application cannot execute code. Further, state and execution context are maintained for the application, allowing the application to be quickly and efficiently resumed into the running state. To prevent the application from executing code while dormant, thread activity is suspended, requests canceled, completed or paused, resources detached, and so forth. Resource usage may be monitored for dormant applications, to remove a misbehaving dormant application process from memory if improperly using resources.