VS2010 How to include files in project, to copy them to build output directory automatically during build or publish

Task is to form Visual Studio 2010 project so, that during any build or publish some foo.exe utility should be copied to output (bin) directory.

Early I have made PostBuildEvent task in .csproj (MSBuild-file):

<PropertyGroup>
  <PostBuildEvent>
    Copy "$(SolutionDir)Tools\foo.exe" "$(ProjectDir)$(OutDir)foo.exe"
  </PostBuildEvent>
</PropertyGroup>

But this is not universal. During publishing (Visual Studio 2010) foo.exe appears in bin directory, but is not copied to output publish directory. Maybe I do everything completely wrong and there is standard mechanism to include files in projects to be later, during build or publish, copied to bin?

There is and it is not dependent on post build events.

Add the file to your project, then in the file properties select under "Copy to Output Directory" either "Copy Always" or "Copy if Newer".

See MSDN.

I only have the need to push files during a build, so I just added a Post-build Event Command Line entry like this:

Copy /Y "$(SolutionDir)Third Party\SomeLibrary\*" "$(TargetDir)"

You can set this by right-clicking your Project in the Solution Explorer, then Properties > Build Events

In Solution Explorer, please select files you want to copied to output directory and assign two properties: - Build action = Content - Copy to Output Directory = Copy Always

This will do the trick.