Question

I have a form that starts a thread. Now I want the form to auto-close when this thread terminates.

The only solution I found so far is adding a timer to the form and check if thread is alive on every tick. But I want to know if there is a better way to do that?

Currently my code looks more less like this

partial class SyncForm : Form {
    Thread tr;

    public SyncForm()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    void SyncForm_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        thread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(Synchronize));
        thread.IsBackground = true;
        thread.Start();
        threadTimer.Start();
    }

    void threadTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (!thread.IsAlive)
        {
            Close();
        }
    }

    void Synchronize()
    {
        // code here
    }
}

Answer 1

The BackgroundWorker class exists for this sort of thread management to save you having to roll your own; it offers a RunWorkerCompleted event which you can just listen for.