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Task is to form Visual Studio 2010 project so, that during any build or publish some foo.exe utility should be copied to output (bin) directory.

Early I have made PostBuildEvent task in .csproj (MSBuild-file):

<PropertyGroup>
  <PostBuildEvent>
    Copy "$(SolutionDir)Tools\foo.exe" "$(ProjectDir)$(OutDir)foo.exe"
  </PostBuildEvent>
</PropertyGroup>

But this is not universal. During publishing (Visual Studio 2010) foo.exe appears in bin directory, but is not copied to output publish directory. Maybe I do everything completely wrong and there is standard mechanism to include files in projects to be later, during build or publish, copied to bin?

Dao
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7 Answers7

111

There is and it is not dependent on post build events.

Add the file to your project, then in the file properties select under "Copy to Output Directory" either "Copy Always" or "Copy if Newer".

See MSDN.

Anas
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Oded
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    Is there any mechanism to control output subdirectory? I have put `foo.exe` in solution to `\Tools\Foo\foo.exe` and during publish `foo.exe` is copied to `bin\Tools\Foo\foo.exe`. Third party code needs foo.exe to be placed directly to `bin` folder. I have already turned off `Namespace Provider` property for `Tools` and `Foo` directories. But this doesn't help. I would like not to place `foo.exe` to project root. But if there is no any other variants as I understand this would be the only solution? – Dao Jan 04 '11 at 18:15
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    You can add a solution folder and add the file to it - I believe it will then be copied to the bin directory. – Oded Jan 04 '11 at 18:39
  • No, unfortunately there is no ability to control on building/publishing for files, that are included to solution folder. I have included `foo.exe` to project root. Not very beautiful but it works :) thanks. – Dao Jan 05 '11 at 11:39
  • VS2015 here. If you have your file placed outside of the MVC project, (maybe in another project as part of your solution), it won't get published with this. http://sedodream.com/PermaLink,guid,b352f04a-2449-4cbb-8125-7acdef9552e1.aspx helped me fix this. Short version: Add to your `Properties\PublishProfiles\(pubname).pubxml` a new entry to ``. (This will be only used for this publishing profile, not for building or for other publishing profiles!) – MilConDoin Nov 30 '16 at 09:26
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    In the solution explorer click on the project then Add>New Folder. Drag your file into that folder. Then Build>Clean Solution and Build>Rebuild Solution. The output now has a new folder with that file in it when I build. – sinDizzy May 08 '17 at 23:29
  • What if the folders we're trying to include have hundreds of files? – foxtrotuniform6969 Mar 07 '18 at 15:53
  • @Nickdb93 - guess you would have to repeat this hundreds of times. It is a setting that is stored in the project file (not entirely sure on this), so you *may* be able to script such changes to the project file. – Oded Mar 07 '18 at 15:56
  • @Oded haha thank you, I think I'll just try to include 7z.exe and include a *.tar, then extract it on first run. – foxtrotuniform6969 Mar 07 '18 at 15:58
  • @Dao Still searching optimal solution for `Is there any mechanism to control output subdirectory?` – Praveen Nov 28 '19 at 12:43
20

I only have the need to push files during a build, so I just added a Post-build Event Command Line entry like this:

Copy /Y "$(SolutionDir)Third Party\SomeLibrary\*" "$(TargetDir)"

You can set this by right-clicking your Project in the Solution Explorer, then Properties > Build Events

Matthew Piatt
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    If you use this approach, I would recommend the following modification: `Copy /Y "$(SolutionDir)Third Party\SomeLibrary\*" "$(TargetDir)"` – codechurn Jul 29 '14 at 17:51
  • If i use publish on my web site does it copy to the deploy directory? (so far i do not think this works when using publish) – David Aug 07 '15 at 18:58
  • @codehurn -- updated based on your suggestion. thanks! – Matthew Piatt Mar 18 '16 at 05:50
6

In Solution Explorer, please select files you want to copied to output directory and assign two properties: - Build action = Content - Copy to Output Directory = Copy Always

This will do the trick.

user3110417
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    This will only work if the file is referenced in a project, and not in the solution via the 'Solution Items' list in Solution Explorer. – codechurn Jul 29 '14 at 17:41
3
  1. Add the file to your project.
  2. Go to the Properties of that file.
  3. Set "Build Action" to Embedded Resource.
  4. Set "Copy to Output Directory" to Copy Always.
5ervant
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0

In my case, setting Copy to Output Directory to Copy Always and Build did not do the trick, while Rebuild did.

Hope this helps someone!

Joel
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0

Try adding a reference to the missing dll's from your service/web project directly. Adding the references to a different project didn't work for me.

I only had to do this when publishing my web app because it wasn't copying all the required dll's.

goku_da_master
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0

Just so my fellow neuronically impaired comrades might chance upon it here, I had assumed that, for web projects, if the linked file was an external .config file that the "output directory" would be the same directory that web.config lives in, i.e. your web project's root. In retrospect, it is entirely unsurprising that it copies the linked file into the root/bin folder.

So, if it's an appSettings include file, your web.config's open tag would be

<appSettings file=".\bin\includedAppSettingsFile.config">

Duh.

William T. Mallard
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