Windows Defender SNAFU: “Items skipped during scan”

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Günter Born is chasing an odd bug (at least, it looks like a bug). In Win10, when you run a scan in Windows Defender, it may tell you But there’s no i
[See the full post at: Windows Defender SNAFU: “Items skipped during scan”]

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Elly, GreatAndPowerfulTech

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I’ve seen that result for months on a 32Gb eMMC laptop that’s stuck at 1809 (because of space limitations), but could never figure out what it represented.  Of late, a full Windows Defender scan on that machine crashes at some point forcing a reboot — if it presents an error code, it’s too fleeting for me to catch — so I’ve opted for offline scans on that machine.

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abbodi86, woody

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I have two protected files (part of a utility I use) that Windows Defender skips routinely.  In addition, I have two tasks scheduled in Task Scheduler for a daily scan and a weekly scan with Windows Defender.  I’ve never seen that particular dialog box.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Great Lake Bunyip, woody

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Yup, started seeing it when defender updated to 4.18.2003.6 about 3 days ago, have no exceptions set seem to be lots of mentions of it popping up with general consesus being bug

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woody

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I’ve seen it today for the first time, on my first manual scan in a week. As a new convert to W10 it’s taking me time to accept the idea that I don’t need to do manual scans any more!

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Great Lake Bunyip, woody

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This is Only on Win10, right? I ran a Quick scan on Win8.1 this morning after updating & there were no problems.

Bought a refurbished Windows 10 64-bit, currently updated to 22H2. Have broke the AC adapter cord going to the 8.1 machine, but before that, coaxed it into charging. Need to buy new adapter if wish to continue using it.
Wild Bill Rides Again...

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So far MSE for W7 is not having any problems.

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WildBill

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Windows Defender on my desktop Win 10 Pro 1903 just completed a scheduled scan, all clear with no items skipped. Windows Defender is up-to-date.

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I’m on version 1909 and WD ver 4.18.2003.6 scanned at 9:07 this morning without any messages. Sounds like some are getting the message in WD and some aren’t.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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I think it may only be buggy on manual quick or full scans, but not automatic or scheduled scans.

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woody, CADesertRat

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I think your right b since another of my 1909 machines automatically scanned this afternoon and there were no messages. UNLESS the message appears right after the auto scan and then goes away before I see it.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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b, woody

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I just ran a Quick scan on my computer that I first reported on #2209971 and didn’t receive the message on the Quick scan either.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
All W10 Pro at 22H2,(2 Desktops, 1 Laptop).

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I can reproduce it on my Win 10 V1909 test machine – let run a quick scan.

From my German blog readers I got the feedback that 80% sees this message, while raw about 20% didn’t get the notification. No idea what’s behind that. My glance into the event logs didn’t show any entries.

Ex Microsoft Windows (Insider) MVP, Microsoft Answers Community Moderator, Blogger, Book author

https://www.borncity.com/win/

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jburk07, woody, ryegrass, Elly

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I didnt get this mysterious message neither on 1809Enterptrise (17763.1098) or 1909Pro (18363.418).
Quick Defender scan.

My glance into the event logs didn’t show any entries.

This is what I say all the time. Its hard to know whats happening inside windows – errors like 0x8002bcf4 are useless to everybody and vague error messages like “Instalation failed” dont help at all.
You see message “Wait until Windows updates your PC.”, then, after hour with no foreseen warning – crash.. error.. OMG, not again!
Still.. going forward no matter what 🙂

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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I just ran a manual quick scan (Win 10 1909 up-to-date) and got the warning notification. I have nothing listed for exclusions. Since the notification says “due to exclusions or network scanning settings“, I checked settings. I do have the following policies set (via the use of O&O ShutUp):

• Cloud-delivered protection: “off”
• Automatic sample submission: “off”

In addition, I have “controlled folders access” turned off. Not sure if this would impact Windows Defender.

Maybe the bug has something to do with my two policy choices? Haven’t yet tested whether turning any of these to “on” makes a difference. I’ll check it later today, to see.

Win10 Pro x64 22H2, Win10 Home 22H2, Linux Mint + a cat with 'tortitude'.

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Set both “Cloud-delivered protection” and “Automatic sample submission” to “on”, then ran manual scans for both Quick and Full. I still got the “items skipped” messages. So, no joy.

Win10 Pro x64 22H2, Win10 Home 22H2, Linux Mint + a cat with 'tortitude'.

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jburk07, woody

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[RetiredGeek]

Steve,

I have the same settings and I do not get the message on my 1909 Pro (build 18363.720) using either quick or full scan. I also have the following exclusions set.

However, on my Home version (laptop) same build and same exclusions I do get the message.

HTH 😎

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
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• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by RetiredGeek.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by RetiredGeek.

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jburk07

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Win10 Pro ver 1909
I ran the the ‘Quick Scan’ and got the message. Running the ‘Full Scan’, I did not get the message. It appears that if it does not scan all of the files, you will get the message. Perhaps a change in behavior but the message is technologically correct– Items are skipped during the Quick Scan!

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I tried a Full Scan but still got the message. So that’s not the issue in my particular case.

Win10 Pro x64 22H2, Win10 Home 22H2, Linux Mint + a cat with 'tortitude'.

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Bitdefender system scan when run the first couple of times takes quite some time. However, after a few runs it gets smart and remembers past scans and will ‘skip’ files. Quick scan is quite fast.

Microsoft cannot write patches for poorly written OS as it is so why would they be any better at security software? I have seen praises for the new improved defender security but have also read(anecdotally) false positives. I am not surprised.

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IMHO, it’s probably caused by KB4052623 (update for Defender antimalware platform).

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I ran a full manual scan today. There were no messages in defender, after the scan. But, there was a notification, after I closed defender, that an item was skipped, with no explanation.

GreatAndPowerfulTech

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FWIW, MSPoweruser has an article about it…

https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-update-breaks-antivirus-scans-windows-10/

 

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

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Elly, jhvance, CADesertRat

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No skipped item messages on either full manual scan or quick manual scan.

On permanent hiatus {with backup and coffee}
offline▸ Win10Pro 2004.19041.572 x64 i3-3220 RAM8GB HDD Firefox83.0b3 WindowsDefender
offline▸ Acer TravelMate P215-52 RAM8GB Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1265 x64 i5-10210U SSD Firefox106.0 MicrosoftDefender
online▸ Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1992 x64 i5-9400 RAM16GB HDD Firefox116.0b3 MicrosoftDefender

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I can’t replicate it.  I ran a full scan with Windows Defender. Scanned 1,019,909 files, scan lasted 3 hours 37 minutes, no current threats, no “Items skipped during scan” popup.

Windows 10 Version 1909 (OS Build 18363.720) fully updated.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Found a workaround to supress the skip message – see my blog post

Windows 10: Fix for skipped Defender scans

Ex Microsoft Windows (Insider) MVP, Microsoft Answers Community Moderator, Blogger, Book author

https://www.borncity.com/win/

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Steve S., Elly

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Thanks. I confirm that this gets rid of the message for me. I decided to leave the group policy as ‘not configured’. I’ll just delete or ignore the erroneous notification until Microsoft comes up with a bug fix. 😉

Win10 Pro x64 22H2, Win10 Home 22H2, Linux Mint + a cat with 'tortitude'.

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gborn

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This skipping happened on a desktop PC I just did a clean install of 1909. But I have noticed other issues on some other PC’s I maintain with Defender. One I noticed just seemed to stop doing automatic quick scans. The notebook in question runs 1909 had no instances of any other issues. But clearly had not done a quick scan in weeks.

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Just to save y’all some reading.

Open a PowerShell session as Administrator.

Type: $(Get-MpPreference).DisableScanningNetworkFiles
This will show you your current setting.

To change the setting:
Set-MpPreference -DisableScanningNetworkFiles $False #This will ENABLE network scanning! Or $True to Disable network scanning.

HTH 😎

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Rick Corbett

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[EP]

I just ignore the WD item skipped warnings as they don’t bother me
No need for me to enable network scanning for Defender

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/windows-defender-fix-for-windows-10-enable-network-scanning/

read gBorn’s comments in that BleepingComputer article

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by EP.

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After I contacted Microsoft’s Windows Update group, we finally have a fix with update kb4052623

Update KB4052623: Microsoft fixes Defender Scan Skip Bug

Ex Microsoft Windows (Insider) MVP, Microsoft Answers Community Moderator, Blogger, Book author

https://www.borncity.com/win/

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Elly, b, geekdom

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[gborn]

Karlston wrote:

FWIW, MSPoweruser has an article about it…

https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-update-breaks-antivirus-scans-windows-10/

 

Well MSPU and WindowsLatest are the sites, that never credited other sources – so both went here on my black list – especially MSPU (after an internal battle, because their admins  marked me for ‘spamming’ due to 4 posts in 2 years to some of my blog posts containing additional details about topics they ‘also covered’ – beside many other sites …) ;-).

Due to this experience, I decided to post here on askwoody.com – and I’m in contact with Lawrence Abrams from Bleeping Computer. Both sites are my 1st source for valuable information and information exchange (beside some German sites from blogging collegues).

Forgot: I’m also in exchange with Bodgan Popa from Softpedia.

Ex Microsoft Windows (Insider) MVP, Microsoft Answers Community Moderator, Blogger, Book author

https://www.borncity.com/win/

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by gborn.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by gborn.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by gborn.

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Elly, b

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