Embed DLL into Exe

Question

Is there a way to build my exe that other references will be embedded? for example. the System.Data.Entity.dll.

Answer 1

ILMerge - Microsoft Research is a utility that can be used to merge multiple .NET assemblies into a single assembly. It is freely available for use from the Tools & Utilities page at the Microsoft Research page.

Answer 2

Optionally:

If you are using Visual Studio w/Nuget, you can simply set your needed reference to 'copy local = true' and install Fody.Costura .

You can refine things a bit using a simple xml file, per the documentation provided on the project page (as well as tidy-up your build directory if desired).

Answer 3

One way is to embed the dll as a resource, then extract it to the filesystem at run time and then dynamically load it.

Although it is hard to imagine why you would need to do this - there are various installation mechanisms that allow you to package multiple files and deploy them together.