Microsoft has provided Windows 8 with a built-in security software, Windows Defender. Its free, easy to use and has great features like other competitor antivirus software in its class.
Schedule Scans In Windows Defender
Today, in this article, I’ll tell you how you can schedule periodic scans in Windows Defender which will run in the background and safeguard your Windows from malware. In Windows Defender, you can schedule scans in the following fashion:
1. Press Windows Key + R combination and put taskschd.msc in the Run dialog box. Click OK.
2. On the Task Scheduler window, in the left pane, navigate to Task Scheduler -> Microsoft -> Windows -> Windows Defender. Now in the mid pane, select third name that is for Windows Defender Scheduled Scan as shown below:
3. Now you’ll be taken to following location, where you have to switch to the Triggers tab. Click New.
4. Now we’re going to schedule the scan, so configure it as shown in the window below. Firstly choose Begin the task as On a schedule, then in Settings section select your priority to have scan. Make sure you have checked Enabled at left bottom corner of this window. Finally click OK.
5. Next switch to Actions tab and click Edit.
6. First of all embed the Program Script within quotes as it is not there by default. And to this, you can add two type of arguments here, Scan -ScheduleJob for Quick Scan and Scan -ScheduleJob -ScanType 2 for Full Scan. Click OK.
7. Now come to Conditions tab and select the Power options according to your best suited priority. It will be beneficial to set your device to ON itself, if it is not ON at the scheduled time. Here you can also configure priority for network.
8. Thus we’re done now as far as scheduling is concerned. You can confirm it by in the window, where the Next Run Time is shown as per your choices provided in step 4.
Windows Defender will automatically scan your computer at the scheduled time.
Hope you found the article useful.
Learn how to Update Windows Defender even when Automatic Windows Updates is disabled in Windows 8.
