Example 2 is without a doubt the least error prone approach. Please see this answer I gave to a similar question for the reason why:
What is the prefered style for single decision and action statements?
Although the Visual Studio default for brace usage is to put braces on a newline (my preferred method), the Framework Design Guidelines book (first edition) by Krzysztof Cwalina and Brad Abrams propose a different convention, example 4, placing the opening brace at the end of a preceding if statement (Page 274). They also state "Avoid omitting braces, even if the language allows it".
Not having the second edition at hand, I couldn't say if these conventions have changed or not.
