Can I use the Debug\program.exe as a standalone?

I wanted to create a portable application (without installers), but as far as I know there is no way to export an executable in vs2013, only a setup. So I was wondering if it is okay to take the executable from the Debug folder. (Of course I would run/build it first to make sure it is the latest build)

Is it okay to do that, or is there a better way to get a standalone executable from a vs2013 project?

Also, in this case you can assume that anyone who would run the program would have the proper .NET framework installed etc.

Thanks in advance!

Update: My project does not include any DLL's, and thanks for the answers! It's all clear now.

Jon Skeet
people
quotationmark

It depends on what your app uses. If there are extra references which are being copied into your bin directory, you'd need to copy those as well. Likewise if you have other content being copied into the output directory. But yes, if you can assume that the right version of the framework is installed - and the right version of any GAC-installed dependencies - then "xcopy deployment" (simply copying the binaries) should be fine.

Note that you don't need the PDB files, although they'll help give better stack traces - and you may want to ship the Release binaries rather than the Debug binaries. (It depends on your context, really.)

people

See more on this question at Stackoverflow