Compiling CLR to a .exe

  • Thread starter Thread starter Greg Smith
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Greg Smith

I have some users who are superstitious of all things Microsoft. They don't
want to install the framework on their PCs.

Are there any tools out there to compile C# to a stand-alone EXE?



Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
I do not know of any such tools and am skeptical as it if they exist...
Remember, when you run a .NET app you aren’t just using a system provided
library or two for the runtime, you are using an entire series of libraries
that provide not only the runtime, but many of the

Even if it was possible... your application would be huge... because it
would have to contain all of the .NET libraries needed to run your app.

It’d be far easier to throw the framework into the installer and not let
them know it is being installed. Not very honest true, but far easier than
trying to do what you propose I fear.

Brendan
 
Greg,

There are some, I think, but I don't know how well they work. Needless
to say, it's definitely not the recommended approach.

I mean, if they are that superstitious of all things Microsoft, they
should be working on a *nix box, in which case, this is a moot point,
because you could just run Mono then, and that's not MS. If they are
running on a Windows box, then they really should accept that the framework
needs to be installed. I really can't think of a good reason why it
shouldn't be (and no, being suspicious does not qualify as a good reason).

Hope this helps.
 
Such things do exist but they are not a good idea because embedding the
framework just pulls in all the framework items thay would have used anyway.
*if* MS were really doing evil things then it would all be embedded into the
application.

You exchange a 1 time download of 20 megabytes for the framework for N
instances of a 20 megabyte application. Not much sense in that really is
there?

People who have religious views regarding their operating system or a dread
of "all things Microsoft" aren't going to be particularly good customers
anyway.

--
Bob Powell [MVP]
Visual C#, System.Drawing

Ramuseco Limited .NET consulting
http://www.ramuseco.com

Find great Windows Forms articles in Windows Forms Tips and Tricks
http://www.bobpowell.net/tipstricks.htm

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Greg Smith said:
I have some users who are superstitious of all things Microsoft. They don't
want to install the framework on their PCs.

Are there any tools out there to compile C# to a stand-alone EXE?
Click to expand...

See http://www.pobox.com/~skeet/csharp/faq/#framework.required

Personally I'd avoid such tools myself though. You're still running
just as much MS code, but you're *also* running it an environment it
almost certainly hasn't been tested in (tested by MS, that is). You're
also running 3rd party code as well.
 
Due to the dependency on the .Net framework, I don't think there is a
solution that translates a .Net assembly into an independent binary
executable.

You haven't provided enough specifics - what part of the .Net framework
or what version of the .Net framework you require - but have you
considered Mono - http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page


Just a thought.

Jeff Clausius
SourceGear
 
Follow up - I guess there are tools which claim they can do this. I
retract my first paragraph.

Jeff
 

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