Antimalware Service Executable (Windows Defender)

[Null_User]

So I've been noting on both my W10 computers that Windows Defender, under the name "Antimalware Service Executable" is taking up from 15% to 20% of my CPU, over 250 ram and is constantly accessing the OS drive at speeds as high as 45 MB/s. The CPU is kept always at max juice, unable to idle because Defender doesn't let it. I know Windows Defender does scans, but it shouldn't be for an entire session.

A restart is a temporary fix, but the whole stuff returns to this behavior after awhile and stays like that. This isn't particular to a single version of W10, as my laptop is on 1709 and my desktop is on 18-whatever.

So... time to forget about Defender and move on to something else?

[Sapph]

It will take quite long to finish the check with slow HDD, which has a lot data on it.

[Null_User]

Could be. HOPEFULLY it sould take much less on an 840 evo (around 180GB of 500 filled) on main PC and Sandisk m.2 on laptop (50gb of 120), if that's what it's doing.

Still, if that's it's supposedly idle non intrusive scan that's supposed to let you do your stuff unhindered, I really don't want to know how would it go about a manual full scan.

[Sapph]

Originally posted by Hanuke:

Could be. HOPEFULLY it sould take much less on an 840 evo (around 180GB of 500 filled) on main PC and Sandisk m.2 on laptop (50gb of 120), if that's what it's doing.

Still, if that's it's supposedly idle non intrusive scan that's supposed to let you do your stuff unhindered, I really don't want to know how would it go about a manual full scan.

With very slow hardware, doing a full scan, I have seen it take as long as 6 hours.

The pc I had to do it with, was an old laptop from around 2012.
Just upgrading the HDD to decent SSD made so much difference. Of course, also the fresh install of Windows.

[Null_User]

Ergh! Would it still do that if I go for a manual scan, simply because it' still auto scheduled? I feel it would be best if I could just pick the time I want to do it. Though it seems Microsoft prefers to hide every option and go full auto on it. With the recent change of the software, I lost the links to the old stand alone box. Now it's all back to the Settings window which can't be more vague at it.

[Sapph]

From what I've seen, it does the scan once a week. It usually starts it at a time where you normally wouldn't be using the pc. But because with slow hardware it can take so long, it would still be doing it at the time you do use it.

I would say that you should back-up important files and do fresh install.
Having fresh install will make it much quicker. Roughly halves the time it takes (as there isn't as much useless junk to go through)

And maybe even getting a SSD.

[Null_User]

Yeah. As I said above, My OS drive is an 840 evo SSD on my desktop and a Sandisk M.2 on my laptop. They are both kept with only the OS and small programs, with games being in separate SSDs.

Anyway, after a restart on each of the computers, it stopped hogging my CPU for more than 0.7% and only at times now. None of the constant 15 to 20 % it was doing before. But as is the nature with these things, it may do it again soon enough.

[Raoul]

o&o shutup prolly can disable it for you, have a look at spybot s&d they been around for ages and good with malware etc they have some other apps worth a look.
Check your settings, might be a way to set it to manual.

[Null_User]

I've been using a combination of Defender, manual Malwarebytes scans, and most important, safe browsing (like not going to certain sites, not downloading certain files, and manually scanning anything I do happen to download). These three have kept my computer pretty safe so far in terms of malware.

The stock anti virus on Windows 7 was pretty good and kept itself from doing anything too outlandish. The current one was working fine until it did what I described above. I may look for a way to disable the automatic service without killing it off completely, so I can summon it for manual scans. If that's even possible in this current iteration of W10....

[Clead HeavenHell]

I know I am late, but did you find a solution?

[Null_User]

Super oldish thread but I'll answer. I didn't really get to solve the matter. It solved itself as W10 kept getting updates. In the meantime all I can advice is to run your system with as few background programs as you can, or use a different anti malware, as W-Defender shuts off automatically (or should do that) if it detects another software running.

[jmonache]

In case someone got to this point I just want to suggest adding the steamapps folder into the Antimalware folder exclusions. I found myself into this predicament when moving my games to a bigger harddrive and the microsoft antimalware just wouldn't leave my games alone. Hope it helps someone.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Add game clients and game libraries to the Exclusion listing; this will shorten any real-time scans by quite a bit.