.NET 5 not compiling to single file executables

Question

I'm having an issue regarding trying to compile my .NET 5 application to a single file executable while debugging through Visual Studio.

My .csproject file is below.

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

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>net50</TargetFramework>
    <AutoGenerateBindingRedirects>false</AutoGenerateBindingRedirects>
    <RuntimeIdentifier>win-x64</RuntimeIdentifier>
    <PublishSingleFile>true</PublishSingleFile>
    <IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract>true</IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract>
    <PlatformTarget>x64</PlatformTarget>
  </PropertyGroup>

</Project>

I have my runtime identifier set to winx64 and publish single file set to true, yet when building I'm left with a bunch of DLLs that my application uses building along-side it (a total of 272 in total). I was wondering - how would I package these DLLs into this application? I had thought that publishing it as a single file executable would do that already.

Answer 1

For .NET 5, to get a single runnable executable file when you publish your project, the important properties are:

• PublishSingleFile
• SelfContained
• IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract
• RuntimeIdentifier

You'll either need to include them in the project file themselves, or specify them on the command line.

Project File:

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

    <PropertyGroup>
        <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
        <!--<OutputType>WinExe</OutputType>--><!--Use this for WPF or Windows Forms apps-->
        <TargetFramework>net5.0</TargetFramework>
        <!--<TargetFramework>net5.0-windows</TargetFramework>--><!--Use this for WPF or Windows Forms apps-->
        <PublishSingleFile>true</PublishSingleFile>
        <SelfContained>true</SelfContained>
        <IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract>true</IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract>
        <RuntimeIdentifier>win-x64</RuntimeIdentifier><!--Specify the appropriate runtime here-->
    </PropertyGroup>

</Project>

CLI:

dotnet publish -r win-x64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:IncludeAllContentForSelfExtract=true

There are other properties worth considering depending on what your needs are, for example:

• PublishTrimmed
• PublishReadyToRun

See documentation pages here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/single-file https://github.com/dotnet/designs/blob/main/accepted/2020/single-file/design.md