Super beginner help

Hi, I’m trying to create a new VST instrument for the first time and I could use some direction. I went through all the basic setup steps recommended by the VST 3 Developer Portal and now I’m trying to achieve the very basic step of compiling some code and getting it to load up into my DAW, unsuccessfully.

I’ve tried the built-in example projects and I’ve tried making new projects using the VST3 Project Generator. They all compile successfully and output a .vst3 file, but my DAW does not recognize these. Every other VSTi I’ve ever downloaded comes as a .dll file, but these projects don’t produce .dll files when built. How do I get them to?

Thanks

You have to read carefully the doc: VST 3 Locations / Format - VST 3 Developer Portal (steinbergmedia.github.io) about the location.
VST3 plug-ins have the file extension .vst3
VST2 plug-ins have on Windows extension .dll