Defender Auto-Scan

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G

Guest

It does not appear that WD is autoscanning as it is supposed to. I keep
getting the message that WD has not scanned in X days.
It is set to scan daily at 4AM.
I am not (to the best of my knowledge) running any other cleaning program.
Thanx!
 
Danni;

If by chance your running a registry cleaner like CCleaner, make sure you
don't have Windows Defender cleanup checked, as this will remove all
history of past scans and WD will think it hasn't run. You can also go to
Control Panel > Scheduled Task Manager and force the MP Scheduled Scan to
run immediately (via right click) as a check to see if your scheduler is
operational.
 
Not that I am aware of. I am, admittedly, not that computer literate. How
would I know whether I am running it or not?
 
If you did not install CCleaner you are not running it.
It's not a program you would have by default.

?:-)
Tim
Geek w/o Porfolio
 
Hi Danni,

Is the Task Scheduler disabled under services? Microsoft Antispyware
schedules as a hidden task using the Windows Scheduled tasks facility--so
Task Scheduler needs to be availªble.
--

The Windows Defender service depends on RPC--so be sure that RPC is not
disªbled.
Remote procedure Call (RPC)
Remote procedure Call (RPC) Locator
 
Hello Engel:
I have noticed that the "Scheduled Tasks" window shows that WD never ran
even though the the scheduled scan ran at the proper time. What gives?
Thanks for your reply,
Fred
 
Hi Fred,

Scheduled scans are done via the Windows Scheduled tasks facility. Go to
Control Panel, Performance and Maintenance, Scheduled tasks.

In the menu at the top, choose Advanced, View hidden tasks and Notify me of
missed tasks.

You should see an entry for MP Scheduled Scan. If you right click this
entry, and choose to Run it--what happens?
--
 
Hello Engel:
WOW!! What a prompt reply! Egel... we've done this b4... If I follow your
instructions WD starts another scan, but that doesn't answer my question.
"Why does the 'Task ScHeduler' window not show the scheduled run that it
had done at the scheduled time??" It showes "Never". But after I did the
sugested instructions, "Task Scheduler" shows the scan.
Thanks, Fred
 
Hi Fred,

Sorry--I can't tell what this is, or why, maybe is a bug, I have the same
situation like you, but I feel been protective by WD.
--
 
Hi Fwall4;

What I believe you're seeing is that WD acts as a Super Scheduler for the
MP Scheduled Scan Task. By that I mean because of the way WD was designed
to interface with the Task Scheduler facility, it's necessary for WD to
first cancel any scheduled MP Scheduled Scan task and then re-schedule it
based on the value that you've set in options, that avoids having multiple
scans scheduled at different times if you were to change the time in
Options that you want the scan to run. The evidence for this is only in
observation, I've not seen the code, but here's what I have seen...

During the course of the Beta people complained about a balloon popup
notifying them that Defender (MpCmdRun.exe) was making an application
registration change shortly after startup, this was obviously due to
rebooking the MP Scheduled Scan. If you change the name of the task and
schedule it yourself outside the Options internal to Defender, this task
runs and logs that run as you would expect. The task as run through
Options does not always run at the exact time you've selected, but does run
within an hour plus or minus of that time, however a scan task scheduled
outside of Defender directly through the Task Scheduler runs at the exact
time specified... so what I think you're seeing is the Defender code itself
doing that run time variation NOT the Task Scheduler function of Windows.

Somewhere a Ms programmer is probably laughing at my explanation of his
complex work on hundreds of lines of code... but that's generally what I
think the explanation is... and yes, it does occur on my machine as well as
yours. It only becomes an annoyance if you get the popup alerts which can
be eliminated fortunately.
 
Hi Engel and Dave:
Thanks for your replies. Dave your explanation makes sense. Now I know that
my machine is running ok and that it's got something to do with the way the
"Task Scheduler" and WD schedule the scan. It's really no big deal since WD
performes the scan at the scheduled time and also shows when it ran and the
result of the scan.
Y'all have a good day, y'hear... :>)
Thanks,
Fred
 
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