Microsoft Chart Controls compiles to C# exe but won't run

Question

I'm building an exe file using Microsoft Visual C# and I've installed Microsoft Chart Controls as an add-on. But whenever I try to run the exe on a different computer, it won't even open and it just crashes. I've tried creating the exe using both 2008 and 2010 editions. The problem is that the other computer doesn't have Microsoft Chart Controls installed, because once I install it, the exe runs fine. However I want to be deploying just the exe file to other people who won't necessarily have Microsoft Chart Controls installed. Is there any way around this?

Answer 1

In Visual studio open up your Solution explorer and expand the references folder. Under this folder you will see the 3rd party DLL references, on any non .net references select them and under the properties set the Copy Local to true. when you setup your deployment make sure that those DLL's are packaged/sent to the target machine. The application is crashing because the remote computer is missing the references it needs to execute your application. It works on your machine because the installer for the 3rd party plugin set up your environment to be able to run this.