Microsoft has provided Windows 11/10 with built-in security software, Windows Defender. Microsoft Defender or Windows Defender is an anti-malware component of Windows Security. It’s free, easy to use, and has great features like other competitor antivirus software in its class. In this post, we will see how to schedule a full scan in Windows Defender.
Windows Defender Antivirus, earlier known simply as Windows Defender, is a built-in anti-malware software component in the Windows operating system. This software provides real-time protection to monitor, detect, and remove malware from your system and protect your device and files. While this software runs in the background mostly during idle system moments, you can also run Windows Defender Antivirus on your own schedule or on demand at any time. Windows Defender Antivirus gives you the option to start a scan manually or schedule a scan at a specific time according to your needs.
How to schedule a Windows Defender scan in Windows 11/10
To schedule periodic full scans in Windows Defender that will run in the background and safeguard your Windows from malware, you have to make use of the built-in Task Scheduler.
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 the third name that is Windows Defender Scheduled Scan as shown below:
3. Now you’ll be taken to the 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 to Begin the task as On a schedule, then in the Settings section, select your priority to have scanned.
Make sure you have checked Enabled at the 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 types of arguments here:
Scan -ScheduleJobfor Quick Scan andScan -ScheduleJob -ScanType 2for 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 the priority for the network.
There are other useful options here, like the ‘Conditions’ tab. If you are on a laptop, you might want to select the “Stop if the computer switches to battery power” and “Start the task only if the computer is on AC power” options. These options prevent the task from running when the system is expected to shut down due to low battery. In addition, the “Wake the computer to run this task” option is very useful for those who put their system to sleep when not in use. When this option is enabled, Windows independently wakes the system, runs the scan, and puts it back to sleep when done.
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.
Once you complete these steps, the built-in antivirus will run automatically.
Schedule a Windows Defender Antivirus custom scan
Sometimes the built-in task doesn’t work the way it is expected to; also, some users come across the Error 0x2. In such circumstances, users can set up Windows Defender to automatically scan by setting up a custom schedule using a new task. Try the below-mentioned steps:
1] From the ‘Start Menu’ open the ‘Task Scheduler’
2] Right-click the ‘Task Scheduler Library’ and select the ‘New Folder’ option from the menu.
3] Type a custom name for the new folder. In this example, we set it as ‘MyScanTasks’
4] Now click ‘Ok’
5] Now expand the ‘Task Scheduler Library’ branch and select the antivirus task folder that you just created i.e. ‘MyScanTasks’
6] Click the ‘Action’ menu on the top of the window, and select ‘Create Task’
7] Specify the task.
8] In the ‘Name’ section, type in a descriptive name for this task. In this example, ‘My Windows Defender Antivirus scheduled task’
9] In the ‘Security options’ section, you can configure which user account can run the task
10] Check the option ‘Run with highest privileges’.
11] Now, click the ‘Action’ tab and hit the ‘New’ button
12] Add the Windows Defender Antivirus program to the task
13] Use the ‘Action’ drop-down menu and select the ‘Start a program’ option.
14] Under the ‘Settings’ section, in the ‘Program/script’ field, specify the path for the Windows Defender Antivirus program:
%ProgramFiles%\Windows Defender\MpCmdRun.exe
15] In the “Add arguments” field, lay down the type of scan you want to run:
-Scan -ScanType 2
16] Hit ‘OK’
17] Now, in the ‘Triggers’ tab, click ‘New’ and specify the time settings. The steps here are the same as the above when setting up Windows Defender to automatically scan using the built-in task.
Once you complete these steps, authenticate with your account credentials, and then the Windows Defender Antivirus will do its job automatically on the given schedule.
I hope you found the article useful.
Next, learn how to update Windows Defender even when Automatic Windows Updates is disabled.
