Programs not updating after I move .exe file

I make program and compile that to arbitrage2 directory.

When things work well I copy the .exe file to arbitrage4 directory.

Before going to .net 7 it works fine.

However, I was surprised that the code running on arbitrage 4 directory must be an obsolete code.

I finally compile the program straight into arbitrage 4 directory and it works fine.

I wonder if my codes are not really in .exe file but in some other files?

I wonder if after .net 7 the .exe file is just a front that call something else. If so that would explain it.

As stated in the linked answer here, the exe of a .NET 6.0+ application is only a stub loader (it's basically a patched copy of dotnet.exe) and in itself does nothing except loading the runtime. The code resides in the platform-independent applicationname.dll file. To run an application, both the exe and the dll are required, as well as any .json files that are generated there (they're used to find the correct referenced libraries). Of course, any other dlls in the output folder are also required to successfully run your application. So the general rule of thumb is: Copy everything in the output folder if you want it to be runnable somewhere else (in a different directory, or on a different PC).

There are two exceptions: The .pdb files are only used for debugging. So you don't need to distribute these. And the .xml files with the same name as .dll files are for intellisense, so they're only helpful for developers. They should be distributed with a library, but not with a full application.

I would suggest looking into Single-file deployment which would bundle all your references into a single EXE. That way wherever you put your EXE it will have all it needs.