looks like i eventually found an issue in BDIS 2010 on my XP Pro SP2.
Active Virus Control enabled - medium, aggresive or critical level (doesn't matter)
now i made a test and added few applications to the Exclusions list, and set the rules for them to Blocked.
guess what - i could still execute those applications with no response from BDIS.
now what is this option for while it doesn't work?
or maybe i'm missing something?

and here's what the manual says:
Managing the List of Trusted / Untrusted Applications
You can add applications you know and trust to the list of trusted applications. These
applications will no longer be checked by the BitDefender Active Virus Control and
will automatically be allowed access. Similarly, applications you wish to always deny
access to can be added to the list of untrusted applications and BitDefender Active
Virus Control will automatically block them.
no, it won't!
my version of BDIS 2010 - 13.0.16.313