OK, so that's Publishing the app. Click on the file once in Solution Explorer and change the "Build Type" from "Content" to "None" and change "Copy to output Directory" to "Do not copy". If that doesn't do it for you, there's another way to exclude files from the Publish, described at Excluding Files and Folders from Deployment | Microsoft Learn[^].
Asking questions is a skill CodeProject Forum Guidelines Google: C# How to debug code Seriously, go read these articles. Dave Kreskowiak