Is it possible to compile .NET IL code to machine code?

Question

I would like to distribute my .NET programs without the .NET framework. Is it possible to compile a .NET program to machine code?

Answer 1

Another (expensive and proprietary, licenses start at $1599) product that can do this is Xenocode Postbuild. Haven't used it myself though, with it costing about the gross national product of a small African country and all...

Answer 2

There are some third party tools that do this, e.g.

• http://www.remotesoft.com/linker/
• http://www.xenocode.com/

Answer 3

Yes, you can now! Recently Microsoft announced .NET Native, a piece of technology that compiles your application with .NET Native runtime (they call it MRT) into one binary (actually one executable and one dynamic library).

See links: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2014/04/02/announcing-net-native-preview.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2014/04/24/dotnetnative-performance.aspx

Answer 4

I don't think that it is possible. You can make a prejitted assembly but you still need the framework.

Answer 5

There is IL2CPU for the compilation part.

Answer 6

If you just concerned with the size of deploying the Framework, you might read up on this.