I was recently working on a project that interacts with different applications and I created a solution that involved two projects – one is based on C# and the other one is built with C++ (managed). In fact, the second project is nothing more but a class library.

When I built the C++ project, I noticed the fact that the actual DLL was not present in the project folder. I tried compiling under different configurations, but still – no result. The closest file (name-wise) contained dll.intermediate.manifest in its filename, but obviously that’s not what I was looking for.

I looked through the project properties and noticed this:

By default, the DLL was automatically deployed to the solution folder (obviously, in the current configuration subfolder), instead of the project folder. This might not be the best way to keep track of projects since when it is placed inside the solution folder, you are not able to keep track of the actual project that created it, especially if there are more than two projects in the solution.

To fix this, modify the Output Directory property to this:

$(SolutionDir)$(ProjectName)\$(Configuration)\

You will see the DLL being built in the correct folder now: