Compilation and Build Process

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After I compile a C# application in Visual Studio,in the bin\debug\ directory of project,
5 files are built.And there are 2 .exe files among them.
with such names: "app.exe" and "app.vshost.exe".
Can I copy and paste ONLY the exe file "app.exe" to another computer for running my application on it?
or the other files must be available too?

Posted 9-Mar-13 8:28am

CyrusT

Updated 9-Mar-13 8:29am

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Leo Chapiro · Answer 1 · 2013-03-09T08:43:00

The vshost.exe feature was introduced with VS2005 and (to answer your question) normally you don't need to copy it to another computer.

The purpose of it is mostly to make debugging launch quicker - basically there's already a process with the framework running, just ready to load your application as soon as you want it to.

See this MSDN article (Debugging and the Hosting Process[^]) and this blog post (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dtemp/archive/2004/08/17/215764.aspx[^]) for more information.

Steve44 · Answer 2 · 2013-03-09T08:47:00

Yes, the "app.exe" is sufficient to run on a different machine. (Unless you need some DLLs, then these are required as well.)
The "app.pdb" is the debugging database, it is required to debug the app efficiently, but not to run it.
The "app.vshost.exe" is only used to run the app within VisualStudio, vshost stands for "VisualStudio host"

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Answer 3 · 2013-03-20T11:25:00

All you need to using your code on any machine (where required version of .NET Framework is installed), all you need should be in your output directory, which you control by your project properties (see the "Build" tab). But if the debugging information is provided, some files are redundant for the use. I would recommend to use default "Release" configuration to see what do you have on output.

Actually, you should known perfectly where your files are, classified into three classes: 1) source code (not everything in your solution and project directories is source; exclude *.user, *.ncb, *.sou, etc), 2) output, 3) temporary files — everything else. You need to know the locations or file types of all that stuff, to really develop.

—SA

Compilation and Build Process

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