The folder that was you provided a screenshot for in the first post was indeed the $(ProjectDir) so, if run from within Visual Studio, will look for its resources there. As an aside, the DLLs are not needed here; they should only be next to the built EXEs (e.g. Debug/ and Release/)
If you run the EXE outside of Visual Studio, the working directory is no longer the project directory but is now the EXE's directory. This means that the resources will need to exist in the working directory (for running inside VS - while "working" on it), and also in the Debug/ and Release/ folders (along with any other build folders).