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This might be a simple question. I searched online and there was a lot of information that seemed to be just a distraction. How Do I Package and install a Released compiled version version of my .Net Framework? Do I just need to pass along the compiled .exe?

Do I bundle the contents of the Release folder or just the EXE's and DLL's? Do I need to include the app.config and packages.config?

Do I need to create an installer somehow?

I have heard of Squirrel. I understand that it downloads an executable from the internet. I don't want that.

I remember that there were distribution files associated with sending a product to someone.

What I have tried:

I have not tried to send my boss the Release version of the .EXE out of fear that it will not run since he probably does not have the .Net Framework.
Posted
Updated 17-Jul-24 21:24pm
v2

If you are using an appropriate level of .NET (you haven't said which version you are using, so I'm going to demonstrate how you can do this with newer versions of .NET), you can publish your application as a self contained executable using a command that looks like this:
dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true
The output will be in a subdirectory of your project's bin/Release folder and, while creating a larger deployment package, this ensures your application can run on machines without .NET installed. I prefer to amend the publish command slightly to remove unnecessary items by adding /p:PublishTrimmed=true to the publish command.

In my example, I demonstrated releasing to a 64 bit Windows machine using win-x64, but you can choose to publish to other targets using different runtime identifiers, so if you wanted to publish to 64 bit Linux, you would replace win-x64 with linux-x64.

[Edit]The tags hadn't appeared on my phone so I didn't see you were using .NET 4x. Unfortunately, this makes the approach you need to use more complicated. As you are using an older version of the framework, you are going to want to create an installer. Now, depending on the version of Visual Studio you are using, you may already have the Visual Studio installer creation tooling available. If not, a popular choice is WIX toolset[^] . You need these options because you are going to need to distribute the correct version of the .NET framework alongside your executable.
 
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Xarzu 18-Jul-24 13:25pm    
Outstanding.
Thank you for your help!
Pete O'Hanlon 18-Jul-24 13:52pm    
You are most welcome.
When using .NET framework 4, it is highly unlikely you need to install it on the users machine as newer Windows versions have it installed by default. Only when it is an ancient Windows version like Windows XP or older this might be necessary.

If you still need to install .NET 4 or other dependencies, I would not recommend the Wix installer as it is quite complicated.
Take a look at this free Inno Setup dependency installer that can install .NET, Visual C++ or SQL Server pre-requisites:
GitHub - DomGries/InnoDependencyInstaller: Download and install any dependency such as .NET, Visual C++ or SQL Server during your application's installation![^]
 
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