How to exit all running threads?

The following code does not exit the application. How can I exit the application and make sure all the running threads are closed?

foreach (Form form in Application.OpenForms)
{
    form.Close();
}
Application.Exit();

Solution 1:

You don't show the use of any threads in your code, but let's suppose you do have threads in it. To close all your threads you should set all of them to background threads before you start them, then they will be closed automatically when the application exits, e.g.:

Thread myThread = new Thread(...);
myThread.IsBackground = true; // <-- Set your thread to background
myThread.Start(...);

A "HOWTO: Stop Multiple Threads" article from microsoft: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa457093.aspx

Solution 2:

You can try the following code:

Environment.Exit(Environment.ExitCode);

Solution 3:

I went through a similar issue in my software, but unfortunately just making the threads to work in background didn't solve the issue. In fact while the thread brings back data (the main software is data driven) and if I close the application, it results to Windows Error, giving rise to a debugging message.

So what actually worked for me:

Step 1: Made all threads run in background such as

Thread aThread = new Thread(MethodName);
aThread.IsBackground = true; //<-- Set the thread to work in background
aThread.Start();

Step 2: In the closing action of the form/application call the Environment.Exit method, such as

Environment.Exit(Environment.ExitCode);

This kept the memory managed perfectly, with no memory leak.

Hope this helps.