Visual Basic 2005: A Developer's Notebook

Control When Your Application Shuts Down

In Visual Studio 2005, a new "Shutdown mode" option lets you control when your application should end. You can wrap up as soon as the main window is closed (the window that's designated as the startup object), or you can wait until all the application windows are closed. And if neither of these choices offers what you want, you can take complete control with the Application class.

Note

In . NET 2.0, it's easier than ever to specify when your Windows application should call it quits.

How do I do that?

In Visual Studio, double-click the My Project item in the Solution Explorer. A tabbed window with application settings will appear, as shown in Figure 3-11. Click the Application tab, and look at the Windows Application Properties section at the bottom of the tab.

Figure 3-11. Application settings in Visual Studio 2005

You have two out-of-the-box choices for the "Shutdown mode" box:

When startup form closes

This option matches the standard behavior of an application in .NET 1.0 and 1.1. As soon as the startup form is closed, the entire program shuts down, taking any other open windows with it. (The startup form is the form identified in the "Startup object" box.)

When last form closes

This option matches the behavior of Visual Basic 6. Your application keeps on rolling as long as a window is open. When the last window is closed, the application follows ...