Microsoft has published a Knowledge Base article that lists down recommendations to improve performance in Windows in an Enterprise environment when running antivirus scanners. Microsoft recommends that you not scan the following files and folders with your antivirus scanner. These files are not at risk of infection. If you scan these files, serious performance problems may occur because of file locking.
In most cases, our antivirus software does not create problems while using Automatic Updates to install Windows Updates on your computer system. But there have been times when some security software have been found to block some system-critical files or interfere with the smooth working of Microsoft Updates.
If you feel that your antivirus software may be interfering with your Windows Update, you should temporarily disable it. Or then you could add some files to the Exclusion list of your security software so that these Windows Update related system files are not scanned at all.
You may set your antivirus software to not scan the files in the %windir%\SoftwareDistribution folder. These files are not at risk of infection, and so if you scan these files, problems may occur because some files may get locked.
Where a specific set of files is identified by name, exclude only those files instead of the whole folder. Sometimes, the whole folder must be excluded. Do not exclude any one of these based on the file name extension.
Files you may exclude from Antivirus scans
Microsoft Windows Update or Automatic Update related files:
1) The Windows Update or Automatic Update database file. This file is located in the following folder:
%windir%\SoftwareDistribution\Datastore
Exclude the Datastore.edb file.
2) The transaction log files. These files are located in the following folder:
%windir%\SoftwareDistribution\Datastore\Logs
Exclude the following files:
a) Edb*.log
b) Res1.log. The file is named Edbres00001.jrs for Windows 10/8/7/Vista and Windows Server.
c) Res2.log. The file is named Edbres00002.jrs for Windows 10/8/7/Vista and Windows Server.
d) Edb.chk
e) Tmp.edb
f) The following files in the %windir%\security path should be added to the exclusions list:
- *.edb
- *.sdb
- *.log
- *.chk
Note: If these files are not excluded, security databases are typically corrupted, and Group Policy cannot be applied when you scan the folder.
Group Policy related files:
1) Group Policy user registry information. These files are located in the following folder:
%allusersprofile%\
Exclude the following file: NTUser.pol
2) Group Policy client settings file. These files are located in the following folder:
%Systemroot%\system32\GroupPolicy\
Exclude the following file: registry.pol
To know about all such files for Windows Windows 11, 10, Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Server visit KB822158.
However, TrendMicro does not agree with it completely:
Following the recommendations does not pose a significant threat as of now but it has a very big potential of being one. Cybercriminals may strategically drop or download a malicious file into one of the folders that are recommended to be excluded from scanning or use a file name extension that is also in the excluded list. We find it sensible for users to aim for better system performance. However, we also think that excluding certain file types or folders from anti virus scanning is not something novice users should tinker with. Doing so may expose the system to risks that can lead to an inconvenience far more severe than a slightly slower system. In line with this, we advise users to educate themselves fully about these recommendations before taking any action. We recommend users not to exclude any file unless there is a critical reason to do so and be aware of the risks entailed by such an action.
I hope you find this post useful!
READ: How to exclude Folder from Windows Defender
NOTE: If you use third-party antivirus software like McAfee, Kaspersky, Norton Avast, AVG, Bitdefender, Malwarebytes, etc. then this post will show you how to add a File or Folder to the Antivirus Exception List.
