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How to build self-contained executables

  1. Pick a repository. In this example, we will use MFTECmd.
  2. Open a shell (like powershell for example) and change directories to where you want the repository cloned. Here, I am using C:\Temp

  3. Run git clone https://github.com/EricZimmerman/MFTECmd.git

    Clone

  4. Change to the repository directory cd c:\Temp\MFTECmd\

  5. Build with dotnet publish -f net9.0 -r win-x64 -p:PublishSingleFile=true --self-contained true -p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true

    Build

  6. go to C:\Temp\MFTECmd\MFTECmd\bin\Release\net9.0\win-x64\publish and you will see your executable

    Result

  7. ???

  8. Profit

As an example, the 'normal' net9 version of MFTECmd is 2.56MB across 3 files, whereas the self-contained version is 74.4MB!

This is certainly a tradeoff, but it works.

Simply repeat this for any other executable you want, then TEST it out.