Generating .NET Core Console App .exe in Visual Studio 2017

Question

(I am using Visual Studio 2017)

I started a small console application (I created a .NET Core application), then I wanted to build the .exe file. But all I get is .dll files and there isn't any .exe file.

Can you help me please ? what do I change in Visual Studios settings, to have an .exe file in my correct directory for my console application?

Answer 1

In fact .NET Core by default generates only dll files that can be run with dotnet:

dotnet myapp.dll

If you want to publish the app as a self-contained exe, you have to right-click the project in Solution Explorer, select Publish and then choose the self-contained option and either win-x86 or win-x64. This will generate a platform specific, architecture specific exe.

Check out this blogpost that goes into more detail about this process.