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?

Solution

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.

Comments

[Farax]

The publish option for a console app is pretty handy. Thanks!