how to make my application a stand alone exe

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Hello every body..
I have created a small application using C# with visual studio 2010, and it is working just fine, my question is How to make it a stand alone (one piece) with exe extension which will run on other computer with out needing .Net framework engine, (I know about publish and using set up application i don't want that) for example I want to make my application just like notepad.exe, one click and it will be executed. and another question is how do I know what .Net files my application is need or dll, to include it with my application path.

thank you for reading my question.

Posted 29-Oct-11 3:29am

ahmad1987

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4 solutions

Solution 3

As Griff suggested, rewriting the app in native code (C++ or Delphi) is one way but that may be too much work. It may be easier to convert your app into a web-app. Now clients can access it through a browser without needing the .NET framework.

Posted 29-Oct-11 4:11am

Nish Nishant

Updated 29-Oct-11 4:12am

v2

Comments

Espen Harlinn 29-Oct-11 12:21pm

Good points :)

Nish Nishant 29-Oct-11 16:46pm

Thank you!

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 29-Oct-11 22:58pm

Right, a 5.
--SA

ahmad1987 30-Oct-11 5:01am

thank you Nishant,, but my application is using some user32 dll (API), I can't convert it to web application, it seems too difficult.

Solution 4

In an earlier life - at least professionally - Anders Hejlsberg[^] had a thing or two to do with Delphi[^]. So much that C++Builder[^], which is able to utilize the delphi infrastructure will feel quite familiar to c# developers.

Best regards
Espen Harlinn

Posted 29-Oct-11 6:27am

Espen Harlinn

Comments

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 29-Oct-11 22:49pm

Good advice, my 5.
--SA

Espen Harlinn 30-Oct-11 5:17am

Thank you, Sergey!

ahmad1987 30-Oct-11 5:04am

thank u Espen. I don't want to make my application so difficult, plus I don't know any thing about Delphi. could you explain more about it?

Espen Harlinn 30-Oct-11 5:23am

The Delphi runtime libraries (VCL) has many similarities with .Net, so if you know your way around the .Net BCL you will be able to leverage that knowledge with VCL. When you develop in Delphi you use an object oriented variant of pascal, this may seem a bit foreign to a c# developer. C++ Builder on the other hand lets you use C++ and still lets you use the VCL libraries.

Solution 2

ahmad1987 wrote:
How to make it a stand alone (one piece) with exe extension which will run on other computer with out needing .Net framework engine

You can't. Even if your app were to compile to native (search for NGEN), you'd still be referencing a lot of the System dll's. There's the packager from Salamander[^], but it costs quite a bit.

ahmad1987 wrote:
how do I know what .Net files my application is need or dll, to include it with my application path

ClickOnce seems to know what your dependencies are.

Posted 29-Oct-11 3:51am

Eddy Vluggen

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OriginalGriff · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-29T03:44:00

Solution 1

It depends on what you are prepared to accept.

If you limit yourself (and your application) to .NET version 2.0 or below, and restrict your application to just working on Vista or higher versions of Windows, then you do not need to install any .NET framework - as Vista includes V2.0 of .NET, and Windows 7 includes .NET version 3.5

If you can't accept these restrictions, then you really need to look at not using C# at all, but using Native C++ code instead.

Posted 29-Oct-11 3:44am

OriginalGriff

Comments

Espen Harlinn 29-Oct-11 12:21pm

Good points :)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 29-Oct-11 22:58pm

Good point, a 5.
--SA

ahmad1987 30-Oct-11 4:59am

thanks OriginalGriff .. but I have visual studio 2010 which is mean I'm using .net 3.5 or higher. so How can I use .net 2.0 or lower in my application using vs 2010?

OriginalGriff 30-Oct-11 5:37am

Load your solution, then right click the project. from the context menu, select "Properties".
Under the Application Tab, there is a drop down list: Target Framework.
Select the appropriate version, and close the project properties window.
Rebuild your project, and be prepared for error messages if you have used later version features!

ahmad1987 31-Oct-11 5:38am

hello Mr. OriginalGriff how you doing? Actually it seems good, and I did what you instructed me to do, but when I chose to change Target Framework I couldn't find a previous .Net versions( but I have previous .Net version and I know that when I navigate to "C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework" I can find the previous version).
So do you think I should install visual studio 2005 instead to use .net version 2.0? thank you again.

OriginalGriff 31-Oct-11 6:24am

You shouldn't need to - I have VS2010 only installed on this machine (My HDD failed, so this PC has never even seen the VS2008 disk, let alone VS2005).
When you click on the Target Framework dropdown, what happens?

ahmad1987 31-Oct-11 5:49am

my project name is test, so if I go to my project directory and copy only test.exe with out these files ("test.vshost.exe.manifest" and "test2.vshost") will it work just fine on another pc has only old versions of for example .Net version 2.0 ?? .

OriginalGriff 31-Oct-11 6:23am

No. The version of .NET required is included in the EXE file - as it will call methods and classes that may not have existed in the previous version.

ahmad1987 2-Nov-11 4:35am

When you click on the Target Framework dropdown, what happens?

when I click on the target framework dropdown, three option appear to me (.net framework4, .net framework 4 Client profile, and install other framework)
ok let's suppose I have old .net framework installed in my vc 2010 , does my exe file work with out the other files (("test.vshost.exe.manifest" and "test2.vshost")?? thank you very much

OriginalGriff 2-Nov-11 4:54am

I get .NET 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 3.5 Client, 4.0, 4.0 Client, and "Install other".
And that's odd - because each framework should contain all the previous ones.

Out of interest, are you running the Express version? If so, then you may not be able to select previous versions (I dunno - I'm not running express so I can't test it).

You do not need the others - they are for debug info, pretty much.