ILMerge VS Costura

You can do this with .NET: https://github.com/dotnet/ILMerge

Cause it's possible since .NET Core 3.0. For legacy projects i suggest use ILMerge static linker.

Are you sure all those files are necessary for running the .EXE? Perhaps after a compile, try copying just the .EXE from the release folder to somewhere else on your machine. You may find it runs just fine. If not, perhaps look at something like ILMerge for packaging it into a single .EXE

Combine applications by merging IL, not by storing it in resources. (il-merge, il-repack and unknown to me 'libz', or write your own merger using Mono.Cecil or dnLib)

Depending on which version of .NET you're building with, there are various tools to allow you to statically link all of your assemblies into one executable. Examples are ILMerge for .NET Framework and ILRepack for .NET Core.

You can try ILMerge, which allows merging multiple assemblies into one.

I've had relatively good success using ILMerge to merge assemblies together to avoid these types of issues. I've had one project that had issues (the most complex one I worked on), but all the smaller ones have worked just fine. Just download it from NuGet, plus one of the NuGet packages that combine it into the build process (ILMerge.MSBuild.Task or MSBuild.ILMerge.Task) and it'll automatically merge your end result as part of the build process.

If you are not on .Net "core", there's still Fody https://github.com/Fody/Costura

Costura is dropping development since .Net Core now offers an integrated solution... see https://github.com/Fody/Costura

1- I had face the same situation like you when you want all your libs to be incorporate in your .exe file. I found that Costura (on nuget) did a great job at that. You can have a look.

If you are using Framework, Fody Costura https://github.com/Fody/Costura works so much better.