The specified task executable cmd.exe could not be run. The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process

Question

I recently started getting this error intermittently when running or building a solution in Visual Studio 2010:

The specified task executable cmd.exe could not be run. The process cannot access the file 'c:\temp\etc' because it is being used by another process.

There are similar problems reported elsewhere, due to things like two projects building to the same folder, or anti-virus issues, but none of them are the problem in this case. I've reduced the solution to a single project and it still happens.

Answer 1

It turns out that the problem was a service my employer recently installed, called AppSense Application Manager Agent, which is designed to limit my access to admin-type features on the PC.

Luckily I still have access to the services control panel, and disabling the service fixed the problem.