Compile a .NET Core application as an EXE file using Visual Studio 2017

Question

I created a .NET Core application (v1.1) in Visual Studio 2017. When I compile it, I get a DLL file produced instead of the expected EXE file for the built project. I did check the csproj file and confirmed the output type is set to exe, but no dice.

Why is Visual Studio 2017 is still producing a DLL file?

I'm sure it's a quick setting somewhere that I forgot...

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp1.1</TargetFramework>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|AnyCPU'">
    <PlatformTarget>AnyCPU</PlatformTarget>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <ProjectReference Include="..\Core.EF.SqlServer\Core.EF.SqlServer.csproj" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

Answer 1

Update 2019:

.NET Core 3.0+ projects will now include an executable for the platform you build on by default. This is just a shim executable and your main logic is still inside a .dll file.

But .NET Core 3.0 also introduced single-file deployments so deploying with

dotnet publish -r win-x64 -p:PublishSingleFile=True --self-contained false

will create a single .exe file containing all your dependencies. You can change --self-contained to true to also include the .NET Core Runtime as well so .NET Core does not need to be installed globally on the target machine.

Original

.NET Core applications are supposed to be .dllfiles. OutputType set to Exe in this case means "executable" and does everything necessary to ensure that the output is runnable (entry point from Main() method, .runtimeconfig.json file). The resulting DLL file is meant to be run using:

dotnet yourapp.dll

This DLL file works across all platforms that are supported by the .NET Core runtime (Windows, Linux, and macOS). This is called a "portable" or "framework dependent" deployment.

If you want really a .exe file, consider self-contained deployments. This will create an output that contains its own copy of the .NET Core runtime and an yourapp.exe file - but it also increases the size of the published application and it needs to be updated when new versions of the runtime are released.

Also, the resulting application only works on the operating system published for.

Refer to .NET Core application deployment for more details on the deployment options and how to set them up.