Because the standard exit function doesn't call destructors for 'temporary or automatic objects that exist at the time of the call' (see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6wdz5232%28v=vs.80%29.aspx ) which just ... seems surprising, I prefer not to use it in C++ projects. So I think it's not necessarily a bad thing to re-write code to get rid of it.