PSA: It isn’t dark magic, it’s your anti-virus software

We’ve all had it- sometimes, under certain conditions, your code errors with an IOError because Windows can’t delete a file. It seems random, and it is. Well, in case you weren’t aware, it’s almost definitely your anti virus software (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2012/09/07/10347136.aspx) or at least, some other crazy shit going on.

So a few weeks ago I gave up and said, forget it, I’m just going to write retrying rmtree/remove functions. It took a long time because I refuse to do cargo-cult programming on problems like this, so once I saw that article, I went ahead with it.

I just wanted to spread this information in case you’re in the same situation I was in. You may as well harden and test your little helper retying-delete function I know you have hidden away somewhere, and make it a part of your core libraries.

<No code provided- this is the hacky shit that cannot have a straightforward design and IMO shouldn’t leave your studio, so you’re on your own to figure out an acceptable design and implementation!>