Windows tip: Exclude audio files from realtime virus scanning

[AnalogSteph]

HOW:

Add an exclusion to Windows Security - Microsoft Support

Find out how to stop Windows Security from alerting you about or blocking a trusted file, file type, or process, by adding it to the exclusions list.

support.microsoft.com

If there is one thing that was slightly annoying me about Windows 10, it's that Windows Defender has got its grubby paws in everything. I've had to disable realtime virus scanning (which is only possible temporarily) because it was slowing down syncing files over the network substantially. Recently, my bed-fi laptop would only boost the clock of its i5-3320M to a measly 1.5 GHz for some reason (since fixed by a reboot), and I noticed that in Foobar2000, loading new album artwork when moving through files was delayed for an annoyingly long time. That's when it dawned on me that the bloody antivirus was probably loading and checking the entire file upon access (so tens of megabytes of FLAC when all Foobar needed was a few hundred Ks worth of tags). I was thus happy to come across the exclusion settings.

I would recommend excluding these file types: 7z aac alac avi flac mov mp3 mp4 ogg sqlite wav zip
Add whatever other harmless space hogs you might have, e.g. DNG raw files, ISOs, other audio / video formats, ...

I have also added a few folders, like the Foobar2000 "library" and "playlists" subdirectories, Amazon Music "Data" subdirectory, the update storage place Windows\SoftwareDistribution, Firefox and Thunderbird cache2 directories (profile in AppData\Local) and - since I like living dangerously - my entire Thunderbird profile which includes all the mail folders. Compressing folders has never been that fast.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

I would not exclude 7Zip, Zip ISOs etc.

 

[AnalogSteph]

Why not? Archives have to be unpacked first (not much to be found in what's essentially random gibberish) and the contents would be scanned upon doing something with them, likewise files in an ISO would be scanned after mounting it and accessing them.

 

[Doodski]

I can scan my desktop PC OS drive of ~637GB size with ~1,479,071 items on a Samsung 980 PRO NVMe M.2 PCI-E x4 SSD, 1TB in ~15 minutes and 16 seconds. Are you using a SSD drive or better to get max speed and response from your PC?

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Why not? Archives have to be unpacked first (not much to be found in what's essentially random gibberish) and the contents would be scanned upon doing something with them, likewise files in an ISO would be scanned after mounting it and accessing them.

Protecting Against Malicious Code | CISA

What is malicious code? Malicious code is unwanted files or programs that can cause harm to a computer or compromise data stored on a computer. Various classifications of malicious code include viruses, worms, and Trojan horses.

www.cisa.gov

 

[spigot]

I had a laptop that was hovering around 90% disc activity all the time, made everything ponderously slow. This happened when it was updated from Windows 8 to 10. A cheap 500GB SSD transformed it, multi-tasking no longer grinds things to a halt. Highly recommended.

 

[alex-z]

Why not? Archives have to be unpacked first (not much to be found in what's essentially random gibberish) and the contents would be scanned upon doing something with them, likewise files in an ISO would be scanned after mounting it and accessing them.

Because malware could conceivably store its payload in an archive file, reducing its initial footprint, and your anti-virus only gets the chance to scan the payload once it decompresses in memory, rather than on disk.

Granted, this is a sophisticated kind of attack, but the risk is more like .0001%, not 0%.

Are you running the system on an SSD? I have an ancient laptop with an i5-520M running Windows 10, and it loads FLAC files instantly, just by having a $30 SSD.

 

[restorer-john]

Pity you can't exclude *.* files. That'd speed it up.