You should start at MSDN.
- System.Threading.Mutex: A synchronization primitive that can also be used for interprocess synchronization.
- System.Threading.Semaphore: Limits the number of threads that can access a resource or pool of resources concurrently.
Generally you only use a Mutex across processes, e.g. if you have a resource that multiple applications must share, or if you want to build a single-instanced app (i.e. only allow 1 copy to be running at one time).
A semaphore allows you to limit access to a specific number of simultaneous threads, so that you could have, for example, a maximum of two threads executing a specific code path at a time.