Slowdown of Microsoft Visual Studio due to differe

Question

What is the least slow Virus scanner to use with Microsoft Visual Studio

I have just had Microsoft Visual Studio “go slow” on me again due to my Virus Checker… (100s of Projects, some with over 100 C# files in them, so any thing that slows down builds is bad.)

We all know that development tools do a lot of file access so are badly effect by Virus Scanner. Most of us have to run a Virus scanner due to do many reasons.

So has anyone measured the effect of different virus scanners (and settings) on the speed of Microsoft Visual Studio?

Has anyone tied Microsoft Security Essentials with Visual Studio?

See also (if you have the rep, please extend the list)

• What Really Slows Windows Down (This has some real data)
• Visual Studio and Virus Scan of Temp folder
• Visual Studio Optimizations
• Development machines and anti-virus policy (Sophos Anti-Virus)
• Antivirus (Symantec Endpoint) configuration for developer machine
• Least intrusive antivirus software for development PC?
• Suggestions for a productive hardware setup with excellent virus protection.
• Choosing Anti-Anti-Virus Software (Coding Horror)

What are peoples experiences with Visual Studio 2010 and virus checkers?

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I got this as part of a helpful email from someone (that will rename nameless) at Microsoft speaking on his own behalf.

It’s not clear that we (Microsoft) would be able to endorse 3rd party products. With that in mind, I did notice that in the posting Ian linked to (this question) that Computer Associates was listed by someone as one of the best performing virus checkers for development environments, which interestingly enough is a product that I believe many Microsoft developers use on their desktops.

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Since asking this question, I have had the least problems with Microsoft Security Essentials, however I have no facts or measurments to back this up.

Answer 1

I'd have to agree with the first answer.

I've seen such issues differ between jobs according to the verocity of the admins' intent to leave configs unchanged for devs. Correctly setup virus scanners still hinder dev, but at least it's bearable.

So I edit the scan lists to:

• Exclude all dev code directories
• Exclude Temporary ASP.Net gen'ed areas
• Exclude Resharper caches

I find this improves the disk thrashing that otherwise occurs with Visual Studio, Resharper and a Virus Scanner all hammering the drive. As always SysInternals' Filemon can help you target rogue services/processes.

Answer 2

We have Trend Micro antivirus at work, and it's terrible. It seems particularly bad doing checkouts.

We commissioned a new build machine recently, and the IS team hadn't set up exclusions for the build drives, and it was taking 45 minutes to check out source code from TFS. With the AV turned off, the exact same source code took about 1 minute 30 seconds to check out.

Answer 3

Exclude your project folders and the visual studio app folder for realtime scan, and schedule a scan as often as you can feel safe.

Answer 4

I've been trying to find the answer to this question for years. I finally did my own tests so I could make a proposal to my boss when we renew our anti-virus licenses. Some of the tests were a little inconclusive, but overall I think they are accurate enough for your consideration. Here are some real benchmarks.

Answer 5

I haven't really done any measurements, but what I usually do is to exclude the real time scanning of my development folder (usually my :\Projects folder). That way, the compiler can work as fast as possible during my everyday repetitive tasks. I do have a daily scan that have the folder in question in its path, in order to fetch any possible threat. On a subjective note, I prefer to use NOD32.

Answer 6

You really need to weigh the capabilities and support of the antivirus program against the slowness. In my case, I've used several different ones, and the best choice was Avast. The Home edition is free, and they are one of the best about updating their virus definitions as new threats appear.