Where is the .exe file for a C program in Visual Studio 2008?

Question

How come there's is no exefile if you rightclick under you're project and choose Open folder in Windows Explorer and there is no .exe file not under Debug or projectdirectory?

Answer 1

Here are a couple steps that should help to solve the problem. After opening your project in Visual Studio:

1. Select Rebuild Solution from the Build menu. From the View menu select Output and watch the build output in the window at the bottom of the screen. You should get a final output something like this, otherwise there was a build error, look through the output window to identify the error:

   ========== Rebuild All: 1 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========

2. Right click on your project and select Properties. In the General section of Linker look at the Output File. This is the path where the executable should be output. If the path includes macros (i.e. $(OutDir)) click the textbox and click the drop-down error that appears to the right and select Edit. In the dialog that appears click the Macros button to expand the list of available macros. This should help you figure out where your executable is and where it is named.

If you just set up a new Visual Studio project, the default path is:

$(SolutionDir)\$(ConfigurationName)\$(ProjectName).exe

so your path would be something like

%USERPROFILE%\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\TestProj\Debug\TestProj.exe

Answer 2

You'll have to build/debug the project at least ones.

D:\yourProjectfolder\yourProject\bin\Debug\yourProject.exe
D:\yourProjectfolder\yourProject\bin\Release\yourProject.exe

Answer 3

It should be under your debug or release folder for a c++ project, under the bin folder for a .net project.

Are you sure that the project has been built?