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AOT Unpackaged

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tetherscript edited this page Jul 22, 2025 · 1 revision

This is a reprint from the \Documents\Notes.txt

CREATES AN AOT UNPACKAGED EXECUTABLE for .Net8/WinUI/WinAppSDK1.7/c#/Win-x64 using VS2022

Note: We are using the free JetBrains dotPeek app to decompile .exe's back to c# source.

DEBUGGING AS NON-AOT

  • You can debug like usual as it builds a non-AOT AOTSampleUnpackaged.exe in bin\x64\Debug\net8.0-windows10.0.22621.0\win-x64. You can double-click it and it runs. But it can be decompiled back to source. Copy the AOTSampleUnpackaged.exe and AOTSampleUnpackaged.dll To it's own folder and check it in dotpeek. If you don't copy it to it's own folder, dotPeek crashes.

PUBLISHING AS AOT

  • Run by publish wizard or powershell gives a an AOT executable in \bin\publish\win-x64.

  • Just double-click on the published AOTSampleUnpackaged.exe and it runs.

  • Examine that AOTSampleUnpackaged.exe in dotPeek and it shows as unmanaged and it can't decompile the IL, since none exist.

  • The AOT executable can still be decompiled with difficulty, but at least they don't get your full c# source code.

  • Publishing by either method also creates a non-AOT \bin\Release\net8.0-windows10.0.22621.0\win-x64 build, not sure what this is used for.

  • Including .pdb's make a decompiling efforts easier, even if it is AOT, so you can turn it off if needed in .csproj. This setting only works with the the publish wizard. In .csproj None false

    The powershell command line creates the .pdb despite telling it not to with -p:DebugType=None -p:DebugSymbols=false so that must be a bug. You'll need to manually delete that .pdb.

POWERSHELL PUBLISH Note: it is forced to use .NetSDK 8.0.404 due to global.json setting, otherwise it will try to use .Net9 if installed. Note: In powershell, go to the root folder of this project and run:

dotnet publish --verbosity detailed AOTSampleUnpackaged.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 -p:PublishProfile=win-x64 -p:DebugType=None -p:DebugSymbols=false /flp:LogFile="bin\publish\win-x64\publish.log"

USING THE PUBLISH WIZARD Right-click on the project in solution explorer, select Publish. Works fine, but doesn't give a .log file.

WHAT ARE THESE TWO FILES? MddBootstrapAutoInitializer.cs WindowsAppSDK-VersionInfo.cs

When you enable some of the critical AOT .csproj settings, these files are linked to your project. If you try to delete them, they are added as -remove's in .csproj, but it doesn't seem to affect publishing. So it's a mystery.

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