Embedding DLLs in a compiled executable

Question

Is it possible to embed a pre-existing DLL into a compiled C# executable (so that you only have one file to distribute)? If it is possible, how would one go about doing it?<

Answer 1

The following method DO NOT use external tools and AUTOMATICALLY include all needed DLL (no manual action required, everything done at compilation)

I read a lot of answer here saying to use ILMerge, ILRepack or Jeffrey Ritcher method but none of that worked with WPF applications nor was easy to use.

When you have a lot of DLL it can be hard to manually include the one you need in your exe. The best method i found was explained by Wegged here on StackOverflow

Copy pasted his answer here for clarity (all credit to Wegged)

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1) Add this to your .csproj file:

  
    
      %(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths.DestinationSubDirectory)%(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths.Filename)%(ReferenceCopyLocalPaths.Extension)
    
  

2) Make your Main Program.cs look like this:

[STAThreadAttribute]
public static void Main()
{
    AppDomain.CurrentDomain.AssemblyResolve += OnResolveAssembly;
    App.Main();
}

3) Add the OnResolveAssembly method:

private static Assembly OnResolveAssembly(object sender, ResolveEventArgs args)
{
    Assembly executingAssembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
    AssemblyName assemblyName = new AssemblyName(args.Name);

    var path = assemblyName.Name + ".dll";
    if (assemblyName.CultureInfo.Equals(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) == false) path = String.Format(@"{0}\{1}", assemblyName.CultureInfo, path);

    using (Stream stream = executingAssembly.GetManifestResourceStream(path))
    {
        if (stream == null) return null;

        var assemblyRawBytes = new byte[stream.Length];
        stream.Read(assemblyRawBytes, 0, assemblyRawBytes.Length);
        return Assembly.Load(assemblyRawBytes);
    }
}