Build my program to only one exe-file instead of 10 files

Question

I have a small program that I would like to be only an exe-file.
When I build it, it creates a lot of files. config, manifest, pdf, dll:s.
Couldnt I just somehow bundle it to one single file?

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sandsater

Answer 1

A single project compiles down to a single binary.  If you have multiple projects then each project gets its own binary.  The CLR and build tools support combining multiple modules but VS does not.  If you wanted to combine modules from different projects into a single binary then you have to step outside of VS.  However this is non-standard.  Shipping an EXE with one or more DLLs is perfectly reasonable.  XCopy or a setup program can get the files onto the target machine without any problems.  If you want to redistribute it w/o a setup then ZIP everything up and have the user unzip on the other side.  Alternatively use ClickOnce or equivalent deployment to save the user some work.

If you use any configuration stuff then you likely also have a .config file.  Whether you truly need it or not is completely dependent upon what you're doing with it.  Manifest files are compiled into the assembly so you don't ship those separate.  PDFs are documents so they have nothing to do with VS. If you mean PDB then these are strictly debug files useful for tracing down problems.  They are not needed on client machines.

Michael Taylor - 10/23/09
http://p3net.mvps.org

Answer 2

You can reduce this to the .exe, config, and .dll files.  The pdf and most other files are not required to run your program.

If all of the projects are C# projects, you should also be able to use ILMerge to merge the DLL and EXE files.  However, the configuration files, if you're using the configuration settings, cannot easily be merged in.  If you want to stop using the configuration settings, and instead have compiled-in values for your settings, you could remove that, as well.

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Reed Copsey, Jr. - http://reedcopsey.com

Answer 3

Is that for a debug build or for a release build? It is probably a debug build. You can't distribute a debug build. You need to change your configuration to a release configuration and build that.

Next you have much more to learn. You might get a good book to help you. You need to learn about the files created by the build. Most of the files created by the build are not needed for installation elsewhere (deployment).

The relevant documentation about deployment are mostly at:

• Visual Studio: Deploying Applications and Components
• .NET Framework Developer's Guide: Deploying .NET Framework Applications
• Visual C#: Deploying C# Applications
• SDK: Windows Installer

The first on in the list above has a lot to read and you should read as much of it as you can. If you don't understand it, you need to get a book or a friend to help you.

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Sam Hobbs; see my SimpleSamples.Info

Answer 4

XCopy or a setup program can get the files onto the target machine without any problems.  If you want to redistribute it w/o a setup then ZIP everything up and have the user unzip on the other side.  Alternatively use ClickOnce or equivalent deployment to save the user some work.

Is deployment for C# using XCopy or unzipping or something such as that as easy as that? For C++ the relevant documentation is How to: Deploy using XCopy but I don't know if there is anything such as that for C#. If it is easier to do using C# then that is one good reason to use C#.

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Sam Hobbs; see my SimpleSamples.Info

Answer 5

Yes it is.  I develop and deploy most apps via just a ZIP file.  Extract (or even self-extract) and run.

Michael Taylor - 10/26/09
http://p3net.mvps.org

Answer 6

Yes it is.  I develop and deploy most apps via just a ZIP file.  Extract (or even self-extract) and run.

Good. At least Microsoft did that right.

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Sam Hobbs; see my SimpleSamples.Info

Answer 7

There was indeed a lot of interesting stuff to read.
I made myself a simple installer that worked fint. (I picked a "Setup project").

I am pretty satisfied but have two smalla questions.

1 What do I need to do to get rid of the message:
"Another version of this product is already installed. Installation of this version cannot continue......."

I would like it to just replace the existing files with the updated ones.


2 What is the difference between the setup.exe and the [Name].msi file that is created when I build the installer project?

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sandsater

Answer 8

1) In your project's properties (Ctrl+W,P) there is the option: RemovePreviousVersion.  Set this to true and previous versions will be automatically removed before installing the new version.  If you are making a patch or minor update such that you don't want the previous version removed then you should not be changing the product code and major/minor version #s.  The following link will explain it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa370579(VS.85).aspx

2) The setup is a bootstrapper that helps get the MSI running.  You can double click an MSI and get the installation running but the EXE is the more common route.  Besides making it easy to specify command-line options the bootstrapper is also responsible for ensuring some critical prereqs are already installed (and installing them if necessary).  This includes the appropriate version of WI.  AFAIK if you try to run an MSI w/o the proper version of WI (and perhaps some others) then the installation will just fail.

Michael Taylor - 10/28/09
http://p3net.mvps.org
 

Answer 9

I don't know why you are getting the message about a previous version. It is not normal. If it were me, I would research why I was getting the message.

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Sam Hobbs; see my SimpleSamples.Info

Answer 10

I think simply the error comes for not using the exe file to execute it and start directly with msi (not making possible to work out this issues properly).