>This: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2010479/asp-net-mvc-app-restarts-itself/2010530#2010530 suggests a virus scanner as a possible cause. Also suggest disabling FileChangesNotification in the registry - but that sounds a bit drastic :-{

The virus scanning is interesting. However, we do not have any guarantee that those files will never be subject to be affected by a virus in some kind of ways. I would prefer they remain as part of scanning process.

Yes, that is correct. That FileChangesNotification should not be touched as I will loose the ability to, sometimes, be able to force a resave on the Web.config file so to have a reload of the entire environment.