Windows Defender Is Becoming the Powerful Antivirus That Windows 10 Needs

Hehe, well said elapsed.

 

From Merriam Webster:
Simple Definition of fascinating

• : very interesting or appealing
  

 

Sometimes I miss the annoying ad popups but I will keep Windows Defender.

 

I was perplexed that it takes 10 seconds (on an i3-6100 box) to open the WD GUI from the tray in Win10-AU where prior to the AU update and on my other not-AU-yet Win10 system, it opens instantly.

Come to find out, AU has MSASCuiL.exe via HKLM:Run.

Neither the windows.old or the other Win10 Windows Defender folder have MSASCuiL. Just the "castle icon" MSASCui.exe.

MSASCui opens instantly on the AU system so I just pinned that to the Start menu for the occasional check-up or scan.

I had pondered disabling the HKLM:Run for MSASCuiL and using using MSASCui (shortcut in the Startup folder) instead but thought better of it. Perhaps MSASCuiL might behave differently concerning Notifications.

As for the 10 second delay in opening MSASCuiL, perhaps that may be fixed eventually.

Unless that delay is because my MSASCuiL is borked. Hope not...

 

I noticed the rather long delay too. Also, I was able to close WD during a scan and see that a scan was going on in the castle icon.

 

Also, MSASCui (not MSASCuiL) is what opens when "Open Windows Defender" is clicked in Windows Defender Settings.

 

I'm also experiencing the 10 second delay opening WD from the tray. This is on Win 10 AU Insider preview (latest).

 

While we wait for a MSASCuiL fix, find MSASCui.exe in the Windows Defender folder and build a shortcut for it or pin it to something/where.

As I posted above, it's what opens when "Open Windows Defender" is clicked in Windows Defender Settings.

 

In the week I've been running Win10-AU, I've observed the SignatureUpdate command line run in Task Scheduler eventually fails at random.

Since the MSE days, this scheduled task is popular with users not satisfied with signature updates at the whim of automatic-only Windows Updater.

I would be one of them and I've had it running successfully on a not-yet-AU Win10 system for well over a year.

But for Win10-AU the same exact task while the Next Run Time increments up, the Last Run Time is stalled at the last time the update was actually applied to Defender. Last Run Time should and will increment up regardless of whether or not an update was available.

For example, for an hourly update an NRT for 9/12/2016 2:15 PM would show an LRT of 1:15 PM. Then 3:15 and 2:15, 4:14 and 3:15 and so on. The problem is observed when the NRT shows 7:15, 8:15 and so on while the LRT remains stuck at 3:15 even though the Last Run Result is 0x0, successful. MpCmdRun.log will reflect the stuck LRT as no further data is logged for subsequent runs.

Searches reveal Win10-AU Task Scheduler spans a multitude of issues and the consensus is it's essentially broken. Macrium Reflect reports that the Task Scheduler API for Win10-AU is different from Win10.

An individual at answers dot microsoft reports that changing
C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\MpCmdRun.exe
to
%ProgramFiles%\Windows Defender\MpCmdRun.exe
resolves the issue.

I don't have the patience to test that and I'd prefer to wait until I see a fix in a KB.

In the meantime, I've resorted to an old friend, Splinterware System Scheduler Free. The latest v4.40 works A-OK.

 

I'm using the insider preview and it seem that it has been fixed now

 

Thanks, I will try it again.

 

Are you sure? It's not fixed on my end (14926)

Mind you, it always opens instantly the first time.

 

Not fixed here, please fix it Microsoft.

 

Windows Defender seems to be doing ok check out this link: https://malwaretips.com/threads/bri...-offer-enough-protection-in-windows-10.63482/

 

Symantec / Norton seems to think WD is doing OK - https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/the-symantec-norton-thread.372604/page-29#post-2619821

 

Well,antivirus defeated viruses before many years.So with no-antivirus,with included antivirus or with outdated antivirus you can be safe.I didn't use av half of year.I visited good-rated software download sites,news sites and some khm,porn sites.I later installed Panda and it found no-viruses.Only Malwarebyte found some cookies,adwares and one trojan but my comp didn't have problem with them.They weren't expansive.

 

Yeah, it's like driving without airbags. Sometimes it's no problem ...

Is the GUI bug fixed in the meantime?

 

Does anybody have update problem today with WD?

 

Come to think about it, I'm using almost none of Microsoft's bare-bone OS tools and I suspect I'm not alone.

File Explorer? Replaced. Burn CD/DVD? No way. PDF reader? Of course not. Text editor? Replaced. Photo Viewer? Absolutely not. Web browser? You must be joking. Audio/video player? Ha.

So... why should anyone prefer Defender for the all-important security department? It has improved, yes, but still lags too behind. It has never been Microsoft intent to provide fully-featured (and fully capable) tools to compete with 3rd-party software. If it has, they are failing miserably.

 

Well, that's your opinion, and that's fine, but objectively WD has become pretty good. I won't tell you to try it for yourself because your obvious anti-Microsoft bias will not tolerate it.

 

What bias? I'm a Windows user. Are you saying that Notepad is preferable to Notepad++, Windows' burn tool better than ImgBurn? And I'm biased?

Like I said, I know Defender has improved but that doesn't say much. Is it now good enough to replace well-known and established security software?

 

Not so much a problem (better not be a problem). but noticed the installation of definitions gets stuck for a little while at 50% then moves on. Happens frequently. However, Defender is called out of the taskbar tray very promptly now, most of the time.

 

There was a Defender / SCEP session on Ignite last month:

You can view it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tmHQb9gcPs

 

It was some problem with SRP settings and block update of WD.

 

Thanks for the video, it's substantial and I viewed part of it. Have to augment Defender with other security software, but the new reasoning is: like any other security suite, it's just a smart thing to do, not because Defender is woefully sub-par. I have no shame in saying my security is Windows Defender (MS, don't make me eat my words). See no reason at the moment to switch to anything else, free or paid.