Note: This seems to have been fixed.

A FALSE positive was detected by Avira AntiVir starting 5th December 2008. I received confirmation from Avira (on the 8th December) that it was a false positive/false alarm (after sending them example source code to cause the false positive on the afternoon of the 5th).

I received confirmation from my testers that the false positive was still present for several updates after Avira claimed to have removed this false alarm. Samples were sent (identical source code that causes the problem) after each update, until it was fixed.

As a precaution, please disable AntiVir, or any other anti-virus (right click on the the icon in the system tray, and uncheck "AntiVir Guard Enable") before you install Virtual World Starter, and if the update gets reverted, then please add the Virtual World Starter program directory to the ignore list (to do this, go into Configure AntiVir, select Expert Mode, and then under "Scanner\Scan\Exception" and "Guard\Scan\Exception", add the directory "C:\Program Files\A2NZ\Virtual World Starter" to the list, assuming you installed it in the default location).

 

False Positive Details

On the 5th December 2008, and for some time after, one of my testers informed me that Avira AntiVir had started to pick it up as the "virus"/"worm" called "TR/Crypt.XPACK.Gen".

Having been through more than just a few different anti virus programs and given them up because of the extreme false positive rate (for example one, claimed there was a Windows 95 virus in a program created before it even existed, in other words a program from the early 90s), this does not come as too much of a surprise. The only annoying thing is that it is right before launch of the new version, although in some ways, it is better now that right after launch...

If you use Avira AntiVir anti virus, it introduced a false positive around 5th December 2008. If you use that particular anti virus, please make certain that it is turned off when you install. They claimed several times that they had removed the false positive, but it was still being wrongly detected, for some time. It seems that they have now really corrected their detection. If it ever gets mistakenly reverted, then just go into the advanced settings and tell it not to scan the program directory.

 

The problem occurred because of a particular data structure in an XML data file.
Specifically, a certain layout of data in a Xml Schema will cause Avira AntiVir to claim that the executable complied with this Xml Schema (by Microsoft's xsd.exe compiler to C#) and then the C# complied and packaged ready for distribution is infected with the "TR/Crypt.XPACK.Gen" Trojan/Worm.