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I wanted to create a portable application (without installers), but as far as I know there is no way to export an executable in vs2013, only a setup. So I was wondering if it is okay to take the executable from the Debug folder. (Of course I would run/build it first to make sure it is the latest build)

Is it okay to do that, or is there a better way to get a standalone executable from a vs2013 project?

Also, in this case you can assume that anyone who would run the program would have the proper .NET framework installed etc.

Thanks in advance!

Update: My project does not include any DLL's, and thanks for the answers! It's all clear now.

Luca_Scorpion
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  • You can get the exe from Debug/Release, then what will happen to referenced dlls ?? have you added any project reference ? – Kurubaran Sep 29 '14 at 09:43

2 Answers2

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It depends on what your app uses. If there are extra references which are being copied into your bin directory, you'd need to copy those as well. Likewise if you have other content being copied into the output directory. But yes, if you can assume that the right version of the framework is installed - and the right version of any GAC-installed dependencies - then "xcopy deployment" (simply copying the binaries) should be fine.

Note that you don't need the PDB files, although they'll help give better stack traces - and you may want to ship the Release binaries rather than the Debug binaries. (It depends on your context, really.)

Jon Skeet
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Copying exe alone from Debug/Bin folder would work as long as you don't have any project reference. If you have other project references to this exe project and still you want to execute this exe(without copying referenced dlls) on other machines then you could use ILMerge. using this utility you could merge exe + multiple assemblies into a single exe.

Check this SO thread.

Community
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Kurubaran
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