when building my project (WPF), VisualStudio outputs the exe along with all dlls for the project.
Which, in itself, is a good thing. I on the other hand have just a really small application written and I'd like to just give this exe to my friends so they double click it and voilá.
Is there any way to force VS to "package" all that output into one single executable? Like, when you download an exe, open it and there's your program?
Cheers
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I have a simple Windows Forms project in C#.
I want to be able to turn this into an EXE file to be able to give this out to some of my friends. I am using Visual Studio 2019.
Before you say that there is an application file in the bin/debug folder, yes, I know that. The thing is that I want to be able to create this into just one file where they won't be able to access the code.
If you want a 100% portable application :
Install the Nuget Package Costura.Fody.
It will add all the dependencies directly into the .exe so that there are no separate .dlls or other files apart from it.
Change the output to Release and generate your project (run it or CTRL + B)
Go to your project folder / bin / release and there is the .exe
Profit.
I have a solution with 3 projects in visual studio where one is wpf and the 2 other are console. The wpf project is built without problems as exe file but the two console projects get built as dll file but I need all projects as exe not dll file.
You can configure the output of the build process on the project preference page.
Keep in mind that converting from dll to .exe put some constraints as for example it needs to have a Main method.
In VS 2015/2017 you need to change project output type. Right click on project->Properties->Application->Output type->Console Application.
There was already a bunch of questions like that but how do I make a stand alone .exe file in Visual Studio C# Express? There is no setup and deployment tab/bar in here.
I've pressed that "Publish projectName" but not sure if that is right. There is a bunch of other .exe files in bin\Debug and bin\Release. Which one do I need and is this actually correct? My project is WinForms C# app, nothing too fancy. Need to make sure it works on other computers.
Thanks in advance.
Take that with the same name as your project. So if your project is names MyWinFormApp, you need MyWinFormApp.exe.
If there is nothing like MyWinFormApp.exe in bin/Release than you probably did not built your application in the release mode. However, if you succeeded to build your application in a debug mode, there should be a MyWinFormApp.exe file in bin/Debug folder.
You can find MyWinFormApp.vshost.exe there as well, but that is not what you want. It is just some helper executable for a compiler.
Also, make sure that if your application uses any other libraries which are not part of the .NET framework you have to ship them along with the exe file as well in order to make it working on another computers.
I have completed my program and would like to send that program in its compiled state to other pc's.
I understand that in the Debug folder there is the programName.exe file, which when I open it on the PC I created it with - it opens.
But if I send that .exe file to other pc's, it crashes or simply doesnt run!
Is there a way for others to see and use my program without installing visual studio?
I have asked this question before on another programming website with not much help, this is the link that they showed me, which i then followed:
http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/58021-deploying-a-c%23-application-visual-studio-setup-project/#-application-visual-studio-setup-project/
The installer installs the program, but there is no files with it to open!
Other machines won't need to have Visual Studio installed - but they will need the appropriate version of .NET, depending on what you built against. If you target the "client" profile, the .NET distribution is fairly small.
You could build a setup project which kicks off the .NET framework installation if necessary, but it's likely to be quite a lot of work - in many cases it's probably simpler just to tell people what they need to install first, particularly if this is for personal use or friends/family.
There are most likely other DLLs that your project is dependent on that do not get copied over when only transporting that .exe file. You COULD just copy those over as well.
However, the best practice is to add a new Project under Setup for a Installer. It should detect those dependencies. Then the other users will just have to run the setup.exe that gets created (but you have to include the other folders and files that get generated). Open up the File System Editor tab of the Installer project. Then inside the Application Folder, I right click on "Primary output from [Main Project] (Active)", then select "Create Shortcut to ..." and drop the Shortcut into the Program Files and User Desktop folders on the left.
For something simple, the other DLLs should be fine.
Create the MSI Installer project for your application.
Copy your project output as input of MSI Installer.
.Exe is depends on .msi file, so when you click the .exe must verify the msi file existed in same directory.
Verify the .Net framework and Installation 3.0 before run the .exe or .Msi file.
The easiest approach would be:
1: Right click on your Solution Explorer and add a new project. The new project would be a Setup project, which would be under Other Projects -> Setup and Deployment -> Visual Studio installer and then choose Setup Project from the right side.
2: Add all your bin folder files to Application folder and then build your solution.
3: It will create a file with .msi extension. You can distribute that to anyone you want and they wouldn't need any VS.
How do you compile and export a finished C# program in Visual Studio in a single executable?
As soon as you press the compile button an executable file is created inside the bin/debug-folder of where you save your project. Unless you've created a class-library the program is just that one .exe file. For every class-library you create there will be a .dll file so as long as you don't use class-libraries you'll be fine.
You can merge libraries into your exe using a variety of tools.
See Merging dlls into a single .exe with wpf for an example.