Virus while building Debug in MS VC 2010

Question

I'm building a simple console app in MS VC 2010.

Facts:

1. [In Debug mode] I get a message from F-Secure: "Virus removed". It points to my .exe for debug mode. Infection: Gen:Variant.Symmi.4743. And MS VC prints: "Fatal error: Cannot open file [my .exe file]".
2. [In Release] Builds OK.
3. [In VC 2008] Builds OK both in Debug and Release.
4. [In 2010 Debug] Earlier it builded OK, too. It started all of a sudden...

What could it be?

Answer 1

Having trouble with virus scanners when you build with Visual Studio is a very common problem. Your build process makes an EXE or DLL pop up from nowhere, that makes virus scanners very excited. I haven't heard of F-Secure's product being a troublemaker before, not like Avast which is extremely troublesome. But having your binary match one of the signatures of a known virus by accident is of course always a possibility. Another chronic problem is a virus scanner locking the file while it scans it, which in turn makes it impossible for mt.exe to embed the manifest.

If you are wedded to F-Secure then you'll need to find a workaround other than uninstalling or disabling it. Like disabling the scan for your particular binary. Ask at superuser.com or the vendor's forum for help. I'm not in the business of recommending products but Microsoft's free Windows Defender has caused me zero trouble.