Stop visual studio putting .DLL files in /debug

Question

Recently I have noticed when compiling that Visual Studio is filling up my /bin/Debug folder with about 20 .dll files, which I previously linked from a /assets/packages folder where I thought I would keep them to ensure /bin/Debug cleaner, so when I noticed they were all in /bin/Debug I decided to move them all back to /assets/packages and then when I recompiled my application to ensure they were all re-added correctly with the new location, it put them all back in the /bin/debug folder? they remained in the /assets/packages folder but they all were copied in to the /bin/debug folder.

How can I get it to stay in the folder I linked them in via references?

Answer 1

You should set Copy Local on the Reference to false.

To quote MSDN: "The Copy Local property (corresponding to CopyLocal) determines whether a reference is copied to the local bin path. At run time, a reference must be located in either the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) or the output path of the project. If this property is set to true, the reference is copied to the output path of the project at run time."

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t1zz5y8c(v=vs.100).aspx

Answer 2

This is because you have Copy local = true on those references.

Right click on the reference (under the references node in solution explorer) and choose properties. From there, find the Copy local property and set it to false.