How to update GUI with backgroundworker?

You have to use the Control.InvokeRequired property to determine if you are on a background thread. Then you need to invoke your logic that modified your UI via the Control.Invoke method to force your UI operations to occur on the main thread. You do this by creating a delegate and passing it to the Control.Invoke method. The catch here is you need some object derived from Control to call these methods.

Edit: As another user posted, if yo you can wait to the BackgroundWorker.Completed event to update your UI then you can subscribe to that event and call your UI code directly. BackgroundWorker_Completed is called on the main app thread. my code assumes you want to do updates during the operation. One alternative to my method is to subscribe to the BwackgroundWorker.ProgressChanged event, but I believe you'll need to still call Invoke to update your UI in that case.

for example

public class UpdateController
{
    private UserController _userController;        
    BackgroundWorker backgroundWorker = new BackgroundWorker();

    public UpdateController(LoginController loginController, UserController userController)
    {
        _userController = userController;
        loginController.LoginEvent += Update;
    }

    public void Update()
    {                        
         // The while loop was unecessary here
         backgroundWorker.DoWork += new DoWorkEventHandler(backgroundWorker_DoWork);
         backgroundWorker.RunWorkerAsync();                 
    }

    public delegate void DoUIWorkHandler();


    public void backgroundWorker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
    {
       // You must check here if your are executing on a background thread.
       // UI operations are only allowed on the main application thread
       if (someControlOnMyForm.InvokeRequired)
       {
           // This is how you force your logic to be called on the main
           // application thread
           someControlOnMyForm.Invoke(new             
                      DoUIWorkHandler(_userController.UpdateUsersOnMap);
       }
       else
       {
           _userController.UpdateUsersOnMap()
       }
    }
}

You should remove the while(true), you are adding infinite event handlers and invoking them infinite times.

You need to declare and configure the BackgroundWorker once - then Invoke the RunWorkerAsync method within your loop...

public class UpdateController
{
    private UserController _userController;
    private BackgroundWorker _backgroundWorker;

    public UpdateController(LoginController loginController, UserController userController)
    {
        _userController = userController;
        loginController.LoginEvent += Update;
        _backgroundWorker = new BackgroundWorker();
        _backgroundWorker.DoWork += new DoWorkEventHandler(backgroundWorker_DoWork);
        _backgroundWorker.ProgressChanged += new ProgressChangedEventHandler(backgroundWorker_ProgressChanged);
        _backgroundWorker.WorkerReportsProgress= true;
    }

    public void Update()
    {
         _backgroundWorker.RunWorkerAsync();    
    }

    public void backgroundWorker_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
    {
        while (true)
        {
        // Do the long-duration work here, and optionally
        // send the update back to the UI thread...
        int p = 0;// set your progress if appropriate
        object param = "something"; // use this to pass any additional parameter back to the UI
        _backgroundWorker.ReportProgress(p, param);
        }
    }

    // This event handler updates the UI
    private void backgroundWorker_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        // Update the UI here
//        _userController.UpdateUsersOnMap();
    }
}