Signcode.exe extremely slow - ESET eats up CPU cycles

I'm a software developer and have ESET Smart Security on my main development PC. I regularly perform code signing of executables as part of my job and I've found that since installing ESET the Microsoft utility I use to sign executables (signcode.exe) it takes around 20 seconds to sign a file. Normally it takes just a couple seconds. I've looked at TaskManager and confirmed that when I sign an executable ekrn.exe (ESET) takes up 50% of my system's CPU cycles during the delay. Any way that I can tell ESET to not interfere with the running of signcode.exe? I sign a lot of files and this is really a drag.

 

If you scan the file signcode.exe, is it scanned quickly? Couldn't it be that it takes it takes time to scan the files you've created, regardless of whether they're signed or not?

 

Would it be possible to put all the files that you sign into a folder dedicated for that purpose and then add that folder to the Real-time file system protection exclusions list?

 

>Normally it takes just a couple seconds.
It means without ess or you disabled Real-time file system protection?
Btw. are you using time countersignature to sign you PE files?
If so it can be also caused by firewall or by workload of time stamping CA.