Why will my project not debug?

I just downloaded Microsoft Visual C++ and am trying to run a simple hello worl开发者_如何学编程d. However, when I go to debug, I get the error "Unable to start program 'C:\Users\Sterling\Documents\Visual Studio2010\Projects\test\Debug\test.dll'"

And thats it. It doesn't say WHY it can't start it...it just says it can't. Has anyone experienced this? And know an answer? I'm thinking about just reinstalling it, but was hoping to find an easy solution first. Is there a separate program I need to start .dll files? I just got this laptop about a week ago so I may not have it yet. This is on Windows 7. Thank you for any help.

You have built your project as a DLL. You cannot run DLLs standalone. If you meant to build it as a program (.EXE), change the Project Settings.

Right click Project in Solution Explorer, click Properties - edit Configuration Properties -> General -> Configuration Type to be "Application (.exe)".

If you want to build (and run) your project as a DLL, you will have to also write a program that uses it in order to to test it. You could do this as a separate 'TestDll' EXe project in the same solution as your existing DLL.