Antivirus Program Trust

[VolTeK]

Ive played some games and run exe's on my computer, how can i get it so my executable (C++) does not get automatically deleted by norton antivirus for example, without setting norton to not delete it. At a programmer of the programs level, how can i make my program so norton doesnt take it as a threat

[Tosi]

Send a complaint to your antivirus, but it won't do much. I learned when writing pure-assembler programs for Windows that smaller .exe files tend to get marked as viruses by most AV programs. I don't know if it's laziness on their part or they seriously expect most programs to be bloated, but they have refused to change.
As far as I know, there is no way to keep an antivirus from deleting specific files without disabling large amounts of its functionality.

[JackScott]

The best thing the OP can do in this situation is uninstall Norton and install some anti-virus software that's actually decent and works. I've had a lot of experience with basically every single AV program on the market, and I can tell you for certain that the various incarnations of Norton's software are the worst.

There are a lot better AV programs. I personally like Microsoft Security Essentials, which is free from Microsoft. It's not hugely customisable, and might still have problems with small EXE files (I haven't checked) but it's certainly a lot better than Norton.

Just so you know, I hate Norton. I work in a computer store, and when the sales staff ordered a box of Norton products, I bought them all (personally, with most of a fortnight's pay), made them into a bonfire, and burned them. It was the only safe way of making 100% sure they couldn't get onto customer's machines. All my fellow technicians thanked me afterwards. It really is that bad.

[arjo129]

I faced the same problem with Mcafee. Since I am only 14 my dad buys this stuff. What I did was I went offline and disabled the antivirus via ctrl+alt+delete compiled the program and backed it up on a USB. Then I restarted mcafee. I am sure there is someway of turning off norton.

P.s Why are you even using windows? I've switched to ubuntu.

[JackScott]

Please let's not let this devolve into a Windows vs. Linux flamewar. Everybody has their reasons for using the OS they do, and a post on an Internet forum isn't going to convince them otherwise. So let's just let that go.

[Solar]

Agreed.

The solution, of course, is to use an antivirus program that either lets you define a whitelist ("don't touch this file"), or lets you decide what to do with a positive-candidate (including "ignore") on a case-by-case basis.