The main purpose of an antivirus , such as Windows Defender, is to protect us from all types of malware that could compromise our security. To do this, these programs constantly analyze our team in search of all kinds of threats, both stored on our hard drives and new ones that may arrive through the Internet. Virus databases are constantly updated to be able to detect even the newest threats. However, sometimes antivirus detect as possible threat some files or programs that are harmless. This is what is known as “false positive.”
A false positive in an antivirus appears when the antivirus detects a file or program as dangerous, and blocks or deletes it, despite being harmless. This can happen for many reasons. For example, due to an error in a database update. Or also because of an anomalous behavior or an error in the digital signature that blows the alarms of the antivirus heuristic systems.
When our antivirus detects a program or file as a threat, what we can do is either look for an alternative (or an earlier version of the program), or if we are really sure that the file is 100% safe and reliable, set an exception in our antivirus so that it does not analyze or eliminate the antivirus in question.
Of course, we recommend that the exceptions be as accurate as possible so as not to lose security. If we configure a very large one, such as the entire C: / drive, our antivirus will not help. We must point to the exact path, or better yet, to the file, which contains the supposed threat.
How to create and configure an exception or exclusion in Windows Defender
Unless we have another antivirus that we have manually installed on Windows 10, Windows Defender will be responsible for our security. And although by default it protects us well, there are some tricks for Windows Defender that allow us to improve our security.
We can enter the configuration of this antivirus from the icon of the notifications area of the operating system, or from the ” Windows Security ” section that can be found in the taskbar search engine.
Here we will be able to see a summary of the safety of our equipment. To enter the antivirus configuration, we must go to the section ” Anti-virus and threat protection “, and within this section, administer the configuration of “Antivirus and threat protection” settings.
Here we will see all the shields and protection engines offered by this antivirus. Within this configuration menu we will look for the “Exclusions” section.
Within this section we will be able to see all the files and folders that we have configured so that they are not scanned with the antivirus.
We can add a new exclusion using the “ Add exclusion ” button that appears at the top of the list.
We can add to the list of exceptions files, folders, types of files or processes that run in RAM. We recommend you always use the first two options and add exceptions only for files or folders.
We will see a file explorer window from which we must locate the file or folder that we want to add to this white list of threats.
Ready. From now on Windows Defender will ignore the files or directories that we have included in this list of exceptions. This will not detect false positives that may appear while using the operating system or certain programs. Of course, we must be careful with everything we copy to these folders, since copying a virus by mistake will not be detected by the antivirus.
How to remove the exclusion
If we later want to eliminate the exclusion, we can do it from the list, selecting the corresponding entry and selecting the “Remove” option .
Once the antivirus exception is removed, it will scan all directories without problems. This way, if any virus passes through this link, Windows Defender will detect it without problems.