Windows Security finds unwanted app

Thank you for your reply！

In general, we don't recommend turning off the reputation-based protection setting. This switch helps to help you prevent duplicate software installations, as well as some malicious requests from viruses.

If you can't find the software that popped up the notification you mentioned in your history, it's likely that the Windows Security Center has already handled the threat automatically (which is often the case), so you don't have to worry about it later if it doesn't pop up again or if you can't find the alert in the history of the protection, which means that the file will be a potential threat. If you have some program installations that were cleaned up, but you are sure that the program or installation file is safe, you can refer to the official Microsoft link to add your file as an exclusion to the whitelist: Add an exclusion to Windows Security - Microsoft Support

Regarding that previous way, I am sorry for some mistakes in my description, my intention was that you need to go into Safe Mode, delete the original history and then check the latest protection record, if there is no new record then it is Microsoft Security that will take care of your threat files automatically. Here are the complete steps as I mentioned:

• 1. Enter Safe Mode
• 2. Enter CMD in the search box , right-click on the command prompt, and select Run as administrator.
• 3. Copy and paste the following command and press enter to execute.
  del "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Scans\History" /s /q /f /p

Thank you again for your understanding and support! Again, I apologize to you for not describing the clear. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask them in the Microsoft Community! We are always happy to hear from you!

Best regards,

Yang.Z

Hi Rubert Mumford,

Welcome to the Microsoft community and thank you for asking your question in the community!

According to your description, you are experiencing a Microsoft Security Center pop-up message “Potentially unwanted applications have been found”. After you clicked on it and went to the Microsoft Security Center, you were asked to grant permissions to open the Security Center. Once you are there, you are unable to find the exact app and you need to get rid of the potentially unwanted app notification.

Please correct me if I have misunderstood and thank you for your understanding.

What I'm trying to tell you is that Microsoft defines Potentially Unwanted Applications (PUA) as a category of software that can cause your computer to run slowly, display unexpected advertisements, or at worst install other software that may be more harmful or annoying.

Windows Security has reputation-based protection that can help protect your PC from potentially harmful apps. Potentially unwanted app blocking is off by default for business and consumer customers.

You may have Reputation-based protection settings turned on, go to Startup > Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Windows Security Center > App & Browser Controls > Reputation-based protection settings to see if this option is turned on.

If you want to view the protection history, go to the Virus and Threat Protection area of the Windows Security Center and click on the name of the PUA to select the action you want to take. A pop-up should appear requiring you to grant access.

However, this feature I have also encountered some users stating that it causes false positives and deletes some of their normally used apps, so if you are sure that your computer apps do not pose any threat to your computer, you can try to use one of the options to turn off this notification:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Scans\History 

and deleted the Service folder. You will not receive this detection notification later.

Thank you again for your understanding and support! Please let me know if I have misunderstood. Tell us the results and we will get back to you as soon as possible. We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Yang.Z - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist