Make .net core console app a single .exe

Question

I have a C# .NET Core 2.0 console app. I want to deploy it so it is a single .exe file with all associated .dll included in the .exe.

Is this possible?

The reason I want to do this is I have made several console apps and I want to put them in the same folder so that only 1 path entry is required to make them available from the command line.

If I publish with dotnet publish -c Release -r win10-x64 I get an .exe but I also get a load of other files.

Is there anyway to either move all these associated files to a named subfolder or to wrap them all up in a single file?

Answer 1

No, right now .NET Core does not support producing a single .exe that contains your entire application.

And don't be confused when you read about self-contained apps. Self-contained means that application is published for a specific OS by specifying the target runtime (like -r win10-x64) and this allows not to have the .NET Core as the shared runtime in the target machines.

Answer 2

I know this question is a few years old but now finally, this is possible with .NET Core.

You can achieve this in two different ways

1. In a console/terminal

dotnet publish -r win-x64 -c Release /p:PublishSingleFile=true

2. Publish the application

You can find more info from the links below

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/single-file

https://dotnetcoretutorials.com/2019/06/20/publishing-a-single-exe-file-in-net-core-3-0/