Here's what I've tried so far:

• Made the default "ASP.NET Core API" project (the weather forecasting one) in Visual Studio
• Built it and copied the contents of the build folder to C:\Users\[My username]\TestService
• Ran the TestService executable. It says "Now listening on: http://localhost:5000"
• Open my browser, enter the "http://localhost:5000" URL. I get a 404 error. This is all on the same computer.
• Noticed that, under launchSettings.json, there were some other URLs listed, none of them localhost:5000. It gives 2 https URLs: https://localhost:7079 and http://localhost:5222. Both of these give "connection refused" errors.
• At this point, I don't know what else to do

Please help I don't want to lose my job

EDIT: I was able to figure out what was going on. Solution is here. Thanks to hypercracker and everyone else who advised