Simplest way to do a fire and forget method in C#?

Question

ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(o => FireAway());

(five years later...)

Task.Run(() => FireAway());

as pointed out by luisperezphd.

For C# 4.0 and newer, it strikes me that the best answer is now given here by Ade Miller: Simplest way to do a fire and forget method in c# 4.0

Task.Factory.StartNew(() => FireAway());

Or even...

Task.Factory.StartNew(FireAway);

Or...

new Task(FireAway).Start();

Where FireAway is

public static void FireAway()
{
    // Blah...
}

So by virtue of class and method name terseness this beats the threadpool version by between six and nineteen characters depending on the one you choose :)

ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(o => FireAway());

For .NET 4.5:

Task.Run(() => FireAway());

To add to Will's answer, if this is a console application, just throw in an AutoResetEvent and a WaitHandle to prevent it exiting before the worker thread completes:

Using System;
Using System.Threading;

class Foo
{
    static AutoResetEvent autoEvent = new AutoResetEvent(false);

    static void Main()
    {
        ThreadPoolQueueUserWorkItem(new WaitCallback(FireAway), autoEvent);
        autoEvent.WaitOne(); // Will wait for thread to complete
    }

    static void FireAway(object stateInfo)
    {
        System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(5000);
        Console.WriteLine("5 seconds later");
        ((AutoResetEvent)stateInfo).Set();
    }
}

An easy way is to create and start a thread with parameterless lambda:

(new Thread(() => { 
    FireAway(); 
    MessageBox.Show("FireAway Finished!"); 
}) { 
    Name = "Long Running Work Thread (FireAway Call)",
    Priority = ThreadPriority.BelowNormal 
}).Start();

By using this method over ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem you can name your new thread to make it easier for debugging. Also, don't forget to use extensive error handling in your routine because any unhandled exceptions outside of a debugger will abruptly crash your application: