OT: Code-signing can help...

[NewsArchive]

I hate it so much when this happens. Our internal automated license
registration systems worked fine and without any source code modification
for more that six years now. This system handles the serial number and
subscription key stuff for all SetupBuilder users worldwide and is located
in a protected folder.

One hour ago, avast! Internet Security downloaded a new virus definition
update and suddenly, the license registration system failed with "This
application has failed to start because yadayada.dll was not found.
Re-installing the application may fix this problem."

Hmmm, it turned out that !avast simply REMOVES ("false-positive") one
component from the protected folder. And of course, it does not help to
restore the file from a backup -- avast! "re-removes" the file immediately.
Adding the file to the scan exclusion list does not help either.

What the F*@#. So what to do now? It turned out that this component (a
Visual Studio written DLL) was not code-signed. But we had a code-signed
equivalent available (very same version, code-signed a few seconds after the
compile date).

BINGO. That worked fine and we are back in business. Code-signing
application files can help :-)

Yes - I do hate computers!!!! <bg>

Friedrich