Is there really no way to exempt a folder in Advanced Thread Defense?

I am using Bit Defender Total Security.

I am also trying to build some DLLs written in C++ using Visual Studio 2022.

I have a blank DLL project with no real code in it, but when I hit build the Bit Defender Advanced Threat Defense deletes my DLL and the build fails. I am 100% sure there are no viruses in a completely blank DLL made by a fresh install of Visual Studio.

I wanted to try adding an exception under menu Protection -> Advanced Threat Defense -> Manage Exceptions, but it won't let me exempt a folder, just a specific executable file.

The problem with exempting the file is, that the EXE or DLL doesn't exist until I build it, so I can't add the exception in advance of the build. And when I do the build Bit Defender removes the file immediately.

-- If I click the browse button to try and browse for the file to exempt, it won't be there because Bit Defender is deleting it right away, so it doesn't exist long enough for me to see it.

-- If I try to manually type the path to the file, the option to add the exception is still greyed out. It looks like Bit Defender is checking to see that the file actually exists before letting me exempt it. But it will never exist for more than a fraction of a second because Bit Defender is deleting it right away.

I don't see any way that I can physically add the exemption.

Also, this project is going to have a lot of debug and release configurations so there will potentially be dozens of DLLs and EXEs. I don't want to be managing exemptions for each one individually every time I create or rename pieces of code. I really should be able to just exempt the project folder.

Answers