How to properly exit a C application

Question

I have a published application in C   The problem here is whenever I close the main form by clicking on the red exit button  it closes the form but it doesn t close the application  I found this out when I tried shutting down the computer  hopeful that the application I made was running smoothly then I was bombarded by a lot of child windows with which I have put MessageBox Alerts   I tried Application Exit but it still calls all the child windows and alerts and I don t know how to use Environment Exit and which integer to put into it   By the way  whenever my forms call the formclosed or form closing event I close the application with a this Hide   function  Does that affect how my application is behaving now

User · Answer

By the way  whenever my forms call the formclosed or form closing event I close the applciation with a this Hide   function  Does that affect how my application is behaving now    In short  yes   The entire application will end when the main form  the form started via Application Run in the Main method  is closed  not hidden    If your entire application should always fully terminate whenever your main form is closed then you should just remove that form closed handler   By not canceling that event and just letting them form close when the user closes it you will get your desired behavior   As for all of the other forms  if you don t intend to show that same instance of the form again you just just let them close  rather than preventing closure and hiding them   If you are showing them again  then hiding them may be fine   If you want to be able to have the user click the  x  for your main form  but have another form stay open and  in effect  become the  new  main form  then it s a bit more complicated   In such a case you will need to just hide your main form rather than closing it  but you ll need to add in some sort of mechanism that will actually close the main form when you really do want your app to end   If this is the situation that you re in then you ll need to add more details to your question describing what types of applications should and should not actually end the program

User · Answer

I know this is not the problem you had  however another reason this could happen is you have a non background thread open in your application   using System  using System Threading  using System Windows Forms   namespace Sandbox Form       static class Program               private static Thread thread            STAThread          static void Main                         Application EnableVisualStyles                Application SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault false                thread   new Thread BusyWorkThread               thread IsBackground   false              thread Start                 Application Run new Form                         public static void BusyWorkThread                         while  true                                Thread Sleep 1000                                     When IsBackground is false it will keep your program open till the thread completes  if you set IsBackground to true the thread will not keep the program open  Things like BackgroundWoker  ThreadPool  and Task all internally use a thread with IsBackground set to true

User · Answer

All you need is System Environment Exit 1    And it uses the system namespace  using System  that s pretty much always there when you start a project

User · Answer

Do you do   Application Run myForm     in your Main     I found it a very easy way to kill the application when the form is closed

User · Answer

This will work from anywhere  inside Form    Form Load    or any event handler  I posted before  but I don t see it now    public void exit int exitCode        if  System Windows Forms Application MessageLoop                  Use this since we are in a running Form        System Windows Forms Application Exit           System Environment Exit exitCode             else                 Form ended or never  Run        System Environment Exit exitCode               end exit

User · Answer

From MSDN   Application Exit     Informs all message pumps that they must terminate  and then closes all application windows after the messages have been processed  This is the code to use if you are have called Application Run  WinForms applications   this method stops all running message loops on all threads and closes all windows of the application    Environment Exit     Terminates this process and gives the underlying operating system the specified exit code  This is the code to call when you are using console application    This article  Application Exit vs  Environment Exit  points towards a good tip   You can determine if System Windows Forms Application Run has been called by checking the System Windows Forms Application MessageLoop property  If true  then Run has been called and you can assume that a WinForms application is executing as follows   if  System Windows Forms Application MessageLoop            WinForms app     System Windows Forms Application Exit      else          Console app     System Environment Exit 1       Reference  Why would Application Exit fail to work

User · Answer

In this case  the most proper way to exit the application in to override onExit   method in App xaml cs   protected override void OnExit ExitEventArgs e        base OnExit e

User · Answer

Environment Exit exitCode     exit code 0 is a proper exit and 1 is an error

User · Answer

I would either one of the following      Application Exit      for a winform or     Environment Exit 0     for a console application  works on winforms too    Thanks

[c#] How to properly exit a C# application?

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