Windows Defender has been causing uncertainty among Windows users since March 10, 2020: How to report on reddit and in Windows support forum Increases users that the software issues an error message during the scanning process.
What is the error in Windows Defender?
Specifically, this is the message shown in the following image for files that were skipped during the scan. It appears when users use Windows Defender Quick Scan have it carried out.
As a result, Windows Defender reports that it "skipped an item due to exclusion or network verification settings."
However, the software does not show which file the Defender skips during the scan. A click on the button of the above message only redirects to the settings for excluded elements.
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The crux of the problem: The users who experienced the error had not set anything that Windows Defender should exclude from the scan.
We were able to reproduce the error on a system with Windows 10 version 1903 (build 18362.720) and Windows Defender version 4.18.2003.6.
What is the cause of the error?
The error message appears to appear on multiple versions of Windows Defender, such as one Blog post by the programmer Günter Born emerges. Accordingly, the cause of the bug is probably not Windows Defender itself.
Tests by BleepingComputer reproduced these issues even though we have no configured exclusions or non-default network settings. pic.twitter.com/kYZjTvHIBH
– BleepingComputer (@BleepinComputer) March 22, 2020
Two Windows updates suspected: Instead, reports of problems with the software begin to appear loudly Bleeping computer with the patch Tuesday in March 2020, on which Microsoft delivered two cumulative updates, namely KB 4540673 and KB 4538461.
Probably one of these updates is responsible for the problems with the Windows Defender – but it cannot be said exactly at the moment.
No official response yet: Microsoft itself has not commented on the error even two weeks after the first user reports. There is also no listing of the problem in the known errors of the updates.
