I have a small .Net 5 console application with no dependencies on third party components. I have set it up to publish as a self-contained single-file. However, in the publish directory is the EXE file and four DLLs. The EXE file will not run without those DLLs being present. The DLLs are: clrcompression.dll clrjit.dll coreclr.dll mscordaccore.dll Why is it Visual Studio does not understand single in Single-File publish ? Andy

You need use IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract or IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract. Either use it like this in the .Net CLI: dotnet publish -r win-x64 /p:PublishSingleFile=true /p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true --self-contained true Either add it in the projectName.csproj file: <IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract>true</IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract> In this way, there will be only one exe file and one pdb file after release. If the response is helpful, please click " Accept Answer " and upvote it. Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

the <IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract> tell the publish, that you want the dll extracted during publish (required to debug). do not do this if you want a single file. also you need to supply a runtime. <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk"> <PropertyGroup> <OutputType>Exe</OutputType> <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework> <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings> <Nullable>enable</Nullable> <PublishSingleFile>true</PublishSingleFile> <RuntimeIdentifier>osx.12-arm64</RuntimeIdentifier> </PropertyGroup> </Project> Note: for MacOs the Mac app bundler format is used, so there are fewer restrictions than windows.

try as following with .Net core 6.0.* <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk"> <PropertyGroup> <OutputType>Exe</OutputType> <TargetName>trade-plus</TargetName> <TargetFramework>net6.0-windows</TargetFramework> <RuntimeIdentifier>win-x64</RuntimeIdentifier> <PlatformTarget>x64</PlatformTarget> <AssemblyName>app-assembly-name</AssemblyName> <Version>1.0.0.1</Version> <FileVersion>1.0.0.1</FileVersion> <Platforms>x64</Platforms> </PropertyGroup> <PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Release|x64'"> <PlatformTarget>x64</PlatformTarget> <Optimize>True</Optimize> <DebugType>none</DebugType> </PropertyGroup> <PropertyGroup> <ProduceReferenceAssembly>False</ProduceReferenceAssembly> </PropertyGroup> </Project> and run this command at respective project directory dotnet publish -r win-x64 -c Release -o bin/win-x64/native /p:SelfContained=true /p:PublishSingleFile=true /p:PublishReadyToRun=true read more Single-file deployment and executable

Self-Contained Single-File does not produce a single file

Accepted answer

Timon Yang-MSFT 9,591 Reputation points

2021-03-04T02:03:02.497+00:00
You need use IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract or IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract.

Either use it like this in the .Net CLI:

dotnet publish -r win-x64 /p:PublishSingleFile=true /p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true --self-contained true

Either add it in the projectName.csproj file:

<IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract>true</IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract>

In this way, there will be only one exe file and one pdb file after release.

If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
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4 people found this answer helpful.
Andrew Fraser 96 Reputation points

2021-03-04T08:35:14.927+00:00

The CLI version worked perfectly.
Many thanks

Andy

Andrew Fraser 96 Reputation points

2021-03-08T14:57:56.313+00:00

Has .NET 5 changed recently - the dotnet publish command above which worked fine for me last week is now giving me the error:

Required argument missing for option: --runtime

Andy

Timon Yang-MSFT 9,591 Reputation points

2021-03-09T01:59:43.363+00:00

@Andrew Fraser
I created a new console application for .Net 5 and published it, but everything was the same as before, and I did not encounter this error.
I did some searches but couldn't find any recent changes made in .Net 5 that might cause this problem.
Maybe you can try to refer to the example in this link to add the runtime option to see if it is useful.
Have you tried the second method I proposed? Open the project folder, find the .csproj file, add this information, and then publish it in Visual Studio in the normal way.

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk"> <PropertyGroup> <OutputType>Exe</OutputType> <TargetFramework>net5.0</TargetFramework> <IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract>true</IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract> </PropertyGroup> </Project>

Andrew Fraser 96 Reputation points

2021-03-09T08:33:11.387+00:00

Yes, the second option of updating the project file and publishing the app works as expected.
Strange that -r now seems to expect a parameter rather that using the default value as mentioned in the help.

Thanks for your help.

Andy

Penn, David 1 Reputation point

2022-06-01T19:27:22.91+00:00

This simply doesn't work. I have the EXACT .csproj you have below. It creates the .exe with a .dll next to it. If you copy just the .exe to another folder and run it you get:
The application to execute does not exist: 'c:\temp\app.dll'.

The CLI approach does work properly however.

Nicolas 1 Reputation point

2022-09-08T20:21:36.43+00:00

I found out that using the .csproj way works, but simply not when debugging. To get a single file using only the modified .csproj, you need to right click the project than click on "publish..."

Michal Šobr 0 Reputation points

2023-08-31T13:14:03.13+00:00

dotnet publish -r win-x64 /p:PublishSingleFile=true /p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true --self-contained true

Worked perfectly, thank you

Jayant Gupta 0 Reputation points

2024-07-12T08:54:24.65+00:00

Hey,
I tried by adding <IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract>true</IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract> to PropertyGroup and it is running fine in Debug mode but when I run it using executable file it is throwing System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Configuration file not found

Like it can't get appsettings.json file when run through single executable file.

This is my property group:

<PropertyGroup> <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework> <IsTransformWebConfigDisabled>true</IsTransformWebConfigDisabled> <PublishSingleFile>true</PublishSingleFile> <SelfContained>true</SelfContained> <RuntimeIdentifiers>win-x64;linux-x64;osx-x64</RuntimeIdentifiers> <IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract>true</IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract> <RootNamespace>A4D.CustodianConnector</RootNamespace> <IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract>true</IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract> </PropertyGroup>

I am using this command to publish exe file:

dotnet publish --configuration Release --framework net8.0 --runtime win-x64

Can you please help to solve this problem
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