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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T07:55:59+00:00

I have my solution laid out as follows src/Project1 src/Project2 src/Project… bin/*.{dll,exe} lib/Debug/*.dll lib/Release/*.dll

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I have my solution laid out as follows

src/Project1
src/Project2
src/Project...
bin/*.{dll,exe}
lib/Debug/*.dll
lib/Release/*.dll

All of the projects are set to build to the top level bin dir. I include a number of 3rd party library dependencies in the lib folder, I like having them here as they then get versioned along with the software in the source repo.

Normally I have each project add a reference to the Debug versions of the libraries but when it comes to releasing I have to manually change all the references to point to the Release versions.

My question is, is there a way to have Visual Studio automatically pick the DLL based on the build configuration?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I suppose you are talking about C#? In that case you can manually adjust the project file to reference the correct library like this:

    <Reference Include="Debug\XXX" Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Debug'"/>
<Reference Include="Release\XXX" Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Platform'"/>

    or if the directory names match the config names exaclty you can even do:

    <Reference Include="$(Configuration)\XXX"/>

    and if needed you can also pull in the platform names the same way

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