As an alternative to #161 we can run the whole process in background mode (excluding the GUI thread). This is recomended by Microsoft for I/O intensive services/daemons (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms686219%28v=vs.85%29.aspx) especially if run at system startup.
Discussion: http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=5982.0