build symbols?

(1) what exactly are build symbols and (2) how do i ensure that they are available for NCOVER when i execute it?

Re: //ea attribute

Of the three attributes you tried the last one is the correct one:

ncover.console.exe [blah] //ea NUnit.Framework.TestFixtureAttribute

This works fine for me - yes the test fixtures still appear in the coverage.xml file but they have their "excluded" attribute set to true, which the likes of NCoverExplorer pick up on and handle appropriately.