VS 2012 Compile windows forms application into an executable?

Hello, I've been trying to search on how to do this in VS 2012 and haven't had much luck. I did mess around with the publishing and the one other computer I tested the published application on didn't work. Any time I would try to launch it on the other computer the program immediately stops responding. It does have the proper .NET framework installed, that isn't the issue.

This is the first time I'm trying to deploy/publish a VB program, it's nothing major, very small and as far as I know it has no dependent files other than an .xml file.

First question is how do I properly compile the program so I can distribute to other people where all they'd have to do is run it through an executable file?
(I tried the setup that was in the folder to install the program and that didn't work either, program still stopped responding on the other computer. However I would prefer that the user doesn't have to deal with installing the program at all, just run it through the exe)

Second question is can I include the .xml file in the executable? If so, how would I go about doing that?

Last question, how do I find out which files I need to include? The only thing my program does is read data from an .xml file and output some data based on user input.

Thanks in advance for any help. Let me know if there's any other information you need.