The Process Control Block (PCB) is a data structure in the operating system kernel that contains all the essential information about a specific process. The OS maintains a PCB for every process.
Key information stored in a PCB includes:
Process State: The current state of the process (e.g., new, ready, running, waiting, terminated).
Process ID (PID): A unique identifier for the process.
Program Counter: The address of the next instruction to be executed for this process.
CPU Registers: The values of the processor's registers (used to restore the process's state after an interrupt).
CPU Scheduling Information: Process priority, pointers to scheduling queues, etc.
Memory-Management Information: Information such as page tables or segment tables.
I/O Status Information: A list of I/O devices allocated to the process, open files, etc.
From the options, Process ID and process state are fundamental pieces of information contained within the PCB. The other options are either not stored in the PCB or are too general.