An application avoids piecemeal resource allocation problems by setting the MCI_NOPIECEMEAL flag of the MCI_GROUP message. This flag specifies that the associated group is treated as a whole rather than several separate instances. If one of the device instances becomes inactive then all the instances in the group will go inactive. This flag can only be combined with the MCI_GROUP_MAKE flag as it specifies the nature of the group to be created. If the MCI_NOPIECEMEAL flag is set during creation and one or more of the instances in the list of IDs or aliases is already inactive, the entire group will go inactive and each device in the group saves its state. The device contexts in the group can subsequently be restored by passing the group device context ID with the MCI_ACQUIREDEVICE message, using mciSendCommand.
If the MCI_NOPIECEMEAL flag is not specified and devices are lost, the application retains control over the remaining devices in the group, unless one of the lost devices is the master of the group. When the master of a group of devices is lost, the group is lost.