Controlled Folder Access in Windows Defender blocked MS Office 365 (Sept 2018)

Question

There is a good discussion of this issue but the thread has been locked. I am having the same problem today. A file I worked on in MS Word on September 7th is now unable to be saved a week later. The only system changes have been Updates. How do I seamlessly get MS Office (include Excel, Access, Word, etc.) to be able to write to the My Documents folder? Even more confusing, other family members are not experiencing the same problem. (But maybe that is me not setting up the controlled folders correctly for them?) My current work around is to save it to an external drive. I really don't want to start adding Microsoft Products to my Controlled Folder Access particularly since the Office exe files are already on an "exploit protection" list.

The other thread with more background:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/protect\_defender-protect\_scanning-windows\_10/controlled-folder-access-blocked-problem-in/813c222d-521e-49cf-a60d-ac93b006a617

p.s. I do want to acknowledge Rob's lengthy summary and explanation for why the above thread has been locked. I have not tried running "Repair Upgrades" as it seems an upgrade was what caused the issue to begin with.

Answer 1

Controlled Folder Access is still maturing and the best way for users to overcome scenarios like this is to just disable it. Its not gonna be the end of your world. Its really to protect against ransomware. Considering, prior to 2016, over billion Windows users never had ransomware protection for nearly 30 years in Windows, I am sure you can live without.

It needs work.

Open Windows Defender Security Center

Click Virus & threat protection

Click Virus & threat protection settings

Scroll down to Controlled folder access

Toggle it off

in later versions

Open Windows Defender Security Center

Click Virus & threat protection

Click Ransomware protection

Toggle off Controlled folder access

Answer 2

If you think it was the Windows Updates installation that has caused your inability to perform certain actions, can't you simply revert to the previous Restore Point, a point in time prior to the installation of your Windows Updates.

Answer 3

THANK YOU so much Andre.

You've helped me a lot. 

In my case, I downloaded iTunes, and it worked fine for a while.

Last night, I was forced by Microsoft to accept updates upon Shut Down of my PC.  Updates were installed, and when I turned on my PC today, I was unable to use the iTunes application.  Every time I tried, I received the following error message:

"Controlled Folder Access blocked," followed by my iTunes application's installation, followed by "from making changes to the folder %userprofile%/Music," which is the path I specified in iTune's settings as my iTunes library.

After your instructions of turning off "Controlled Folder Access" in the Windows Defender Security Center, I clicked on iTunes.exe again and voila, like you said, iTunes opened just like I intended it to.           THANKS AGAIN  Andre, much appreciated sir.

Sincerely,

Roman O.

Answer 4

Hi Peter,

I'm sorry you thought the answer was unhelpful. Is there anything I could have done that might be of better understanding?

Answer 5

It's a shame because it sounds like a very good idea for my situation. Our family has multiple users and the level of computer confidence ranges from "nothing could possibly go wrong, it's a bullet proof as a DVD player" to people like me who expect everything to go wrong when our friend's 6 year old decides to drag the everything to the recycle bin or go to the Microsoft Store and click on everything that is pink.

It would make me much more comfortable to know that other users can't install software and the CFA seems like the best way to do that in the Home version of Windows.

After logging out the other users and rebooting the machine, MS Word is able to save (or at least I'm not getting the error message).