Thread: Visual Studio - "Single-EXE" output

Hi all,
how can I make in Visual Studio the application which will be stored only in one exe file?
I don't want the application to require some other resources (some dlls, or other stuff) when it is launched.

Because I have made a simple program and I wanted to copy that exe file to another computer but there it couldn't be launched because of some required (dll) files which were missing there.

In other words, I want to make a program fully compatible (e.g. among Windowses).


Thanks.

Originally Posted by Petike

Hi all,
how can I make in Visual Studio the application which will be stored only in one exe file?
I don't want the application to require some other resources (some dlls, or other stuff) when it is launched.

Because I have made a simple program and I wanted to copy that exe file to another computer but there it couldn't be launched because of some required (dll) files which were missing there.

In other words, I want to make a program fully compatible (e.g. among Windowses).


Thanks.

Which DLLs was it complaining about? If you are using any nonstandard libraries and don't want DLLs, you'll need to link statically.

If the target computer lacks the Visual Studio runtime, all you have to do is install it once.
The runtime is available from Microsoft's homepage. It is required to be installed on the target computer for any Visual Studio app to run.

Originally Posted by Elysia

It is required to be installed on the target computer for any Visual Studio app to run.

I would say it in other words.
Almost always I have downloaded whatever game, application or other software, I have just installed it and then launch it, and it was running ok. And I want to do the same. The user will just download my application and run it without installing some other software which is not required.

I think that in Visual Studio I have to set somewhere that it will give all the files in one "exe" file. If someone could tell me where to set it (if it is possible).

P.S.: By the way, I am using in that application "OpenGL", maybe there is some other steps to set it up.


Thanks.

The typical way to do this is an installer.
It can detect if the runtime is not installed, and if not, install it transparently.
Believe it or not, most programs actually bundle the runtime with them and install it on the machine when installing the software.