Operating systems typically allocate only a portion of a computer's resources to each process and monitor each process to see that it does not exceed its allocation. If the operating system detects a process exceeding its allocation, it takes some error action. The action it takes is a general protection violation (also known as an exception) or some other action, depending on the operating system.When the operating system detects a general protection violation, it runs a special program called an exception handler before abandoning the process that caused the exception. The exception handler might be one specifically associated with the program that caused the exception. Alternatively, if there is no specific handler, the operating system runs its own default exception handler.