Can Visual Studio 2019 pack the DLLs it requires in just a small .exe file?
First you're sending the wrong files. Files with d suffix like that are for debugging only and must not be distributed
You cannot redistribute all of the files that are included in Visual Studio; you are only permitted to redistribute the files that are specified in Redist.txt or the online "REDIST list." Debug versions of applications and the various Visual C++ debug DLLs are not redistributable. For more information, see Choosing a Deployment Method.
Determining Which DLLs to Redistribute
Final executable files must be compiled in release mode and use the release version of those DLLs. Don't give out debug binaries. They're seriously slow due to the logics added for debugging purposes
And you don't actually need to send the DLLs but you should tell the user to install the corresponding VC redistributable package. It's the runtime (CRT) for Visual Studio projects containing functions like printf, memcpy... for you. You don't need to find any other DLL if you don't use any DLLs in the project
It's also possible to link the runtime library statically by changing the option /MD to /MT. That way the final exe file will be self-contained (no need for additional runtime DLLs) but it'll also be larger and you lose the ability to use the newer library functions when the package is updated to fix bugs or performance issues. Again, you must compile in release mode regardless of whether you're linking statically or dynamically
See also
- Compile to a stand-alone executable (.exe) in Visual Studio
- Compile C in Visual Studio 2012 without MSVCRT runtime
- How to make a Single Executable VS 2010