Windows Defender, Microsoft’s popular antivirus, seems to be having trouble when it comes to scanning files on the hard drive. The application returns an error message indicating that the scanner is unable to process an item, without giving more details on the file or files in question or on the origin of the problem: is it a compressed file using an unknown method, corrupt data on the hard drive, or some other problem? The problem is that the problem could also affect a file infected with malware, but the little information provided by Windows Defender does little to inform the user.
Windows Defender bug only affects Windows 10
"Windows Defender antivirus scan skipped an item due to exclusion or network scan settings. This is the error message that some owners of Windows 10 are currently seeing when they start a scan of their PC. The bug is not an isolated case and concerns a large number of users. The messages flow sometimes on Reddit, sometimes on the Microsoft forum.
Note also that the problem does not affect all users of Windows 10. One of the users of the Microsoft forum explains the bug affects only one of his two machines. For our part, we have not encountered the slightest bug with Windows Defender on our test machine, but we do not currently have all of our usual panoply of PCs, containment requires. In addition, this Windows Defender bug has not yet been spotted in Windows 7 or 8.1. At the moment, it only seems to affect Windows 10. The problem in question concerns version 4.18.2003 and newer editions of Windows Defender. On the Microsoft forum, an MVP is trying to provide a solution, but without convincing results.
Microsoft has not yet officially responded to the user bug. As usual, the process for handling bugs (or in this case, a problem deserving at least an explanation) is quite long, except in cases of force majeure.
Remember that Windows Defender is now an integral part of the module called Windows Security, which includes a set of applications intended to protect the PC: protection against malware, firewalls, user account protection, application and browser control, etc.
