Is it considered acceptable to not call Dispose() on a TPL Task object?

I want to trigger a task to run on a background thread. I don't want to wait on the tasks completion.

In .net 3.5 I would have done this:

ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(d => { DoSomething(); });

In .net 4 the TPL is the suggested way. The common pattern I have seen recommended is:

Task.Factory.StartNew(() => { DoSomething(); });

However, the StartNew() method returns a Task object which implements IDisposable. This seems to be overlooked by people who recommend this pattern. The MSDN documentation on the Task.Dispose() method says:

"Always call Dispose before you release your last reference to the Task."

You can't call dispose on a task until it is completed, so having the main thread wait and call dispose would defeat the point of doing on a background thread in the first place. There also doesn't seem to be any completed/finished event that could be used for cleanup.

The MSDN page on the Task class doesn't comment on this, and the book "Pro C#2010..." recommends the same pattern and makes no comment on task disposal.

I know if I just leave it the finalizer will catch it in the end, but is this going to come back and bite me when I'm doing lots of fire & forget tasks like this and the finalizer thread gets overwhelmed?

So my questions are:

• Is it acceptable to not call Dispose() on the Task class in this case? And if so, why and are there risks/consequences?
• Is there any documentation that discusses this?
• Or is there an appropriate way of disposing of the Task object that I've missed?
• Or is there another way of doing fire & forget tasks with the TPL?