Should I ensure that threads end in Dispose?

Bruno, whenever your class has members that implement IDisposable you MUST make the correct dispose of these members in your class.

Thread does not implement IDisposable , so you do not MUST , but you can END the thread for reasons you've commented.

But I suggest not using a Thread object directly, but instead using more modern features like ThreadPool or, better yet, Task (TPL).

Minelli's answer already says the basics, I decided to answer because that was original in a question that I answered and had comments from me.

If the class Thread does not implement IDisposable you can not call Dispose() in any way, however much you want.

It may even be a terminology problem, but terminating a thread has nothing to do with discarding your operating system ( handle ) resources. The Dispose() is to discard, not to finish.

In question What types of features are released in a "using" statement? use of using , so there is no possibility of its use in class Thread , even if you want. You can do something to prevent the thread from staying alive if you want, but it will not be with using , it will not be calling Dispose() . No doubt you have to take some care of it to ensure its completion, but it is not with using . You have to make sure it's stopped, if you make sure, it's all right.

But creating threads is very expensive, it is not appropriate to create or kill them. You need to create and reuse what you have. For this we use tasks without it possible. Or we create a mechanism that simulates more or less what Task does.

The fact that a thread continues to exist does not mean that it is consuming any resources, it may be at standby without consuming any CPU, will only consume memory for your stack and some small admin information.

Already using the class Task , it is different, this class can, and usually should use using or a pattern that does more or less the same thing as using does.