Closing a thread if its open after 10 seconds - vb.net

Question

I have a thread I start like this:
Dim documentConverterThread As New Threading.Thread(AddressOf ConvertToLatestVersion)
documentConverterThread.Start(oDoc)
And this is the function the word document is passed to:
Private Sub ConvertWordTemplateToLatestVersion(ByVal oDoc As Word.Document)
Try
oDoc.Convert()
oDoc.Save()
oDoc.Close()
Catch ex As Exception
End Try
End Sub
What I'm trying to do is that if execution gets stuck when calling the .Convert() function, then close the thread and the word document.
I have been trying to use a timer, but I need access to both the documentConverterThread and oDoc objects to handle the Timer.Tick event:
Private Sub TimerEventProcesser(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs)
If documentConverterThread.IsAlive() Then
documentConverterThread.Abort()
oDoc.Close()
End If
End Sub
Is there any way around this other than using a private variable in the TimerEventProcessor function? Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

You could create another thread for it. Using the Sub() lambda you can create an inline delegate from which you can call the new timer method and pass both the thread variable and the document variable to it. The new thread will then wait 10 seconds, and if the first thread isn't finished it will close the document.
Private Sub ConvertWordTemplateToLatestVersion(ByVal oDoc As Word.Document)
Dim TimerThread As New Threading.Thread(Sub() TimerThread(documentConverterThread, oDoc))
TimerThread.Start() 'Start the timer thread.
Try
oDoc.Convert()
oDoc.Save()
oDoc.Close()
Catch 'Why catch an exception if we do not even handle it?
End Try
End Sub
Private Sub TimerThread(ByRef dcThread As Threading.Thread, ByRef oDoc As Word.Document)
Threading.Thread.Sleep(10000) 'Wait 10 seconds.
If dcThread.IsAlive() Then 'Close the document if the primary thread isn't finished yet.
dcThread.Abort()
Try
oDoc.Close()
oDoc.Dispose()
Catch
End Try
End If
End Sub
I used ByRef instead of ByVal to be sure we are referencing the same objects all the time and not newly created ones.