Debug output options for Visual Studio using Release

A common approach is to make a common output directory and then modify the output names for release vs debug names. For instance, you might generate Foo.exe and FooDebug.exe. DLLs/libraries often have a 'd' suffix on debug builds as well.

Another very common approach is to just not make things relevant to the output directories. You can use a post-build step to copy DLLs into the output directory and use a config file or other means to set resource paths outside of the output directory.

Just don't make your application depend on stuff inside a Release folder - copy whatever is needed (in the proper debug/release configuration) inside a folder for each build configuration, and run it there (via a build script or other). That way you don't have hidden dependencies in your build system and can build in debug or release mode without headaches.

Go into your project properties, debug tab, and set up the "Working directory" properly. This is the location that the exe will be run from. By default, it will run from the same location as the exe (e.g. build/Release, build/Debug, etc) but you should configure it to the path where the exe will actually exist in a real installation so that it behaves like a real install would.