Windows Security skipped 1 file, how can I see what it was?

Question

I scan my computer with Windows Security frequently-- usually once a day. About once a week I'll do a full scan, and maybe once every other week I'll do an offline scan, but for daily scans I do quick scan.

Tonight I did a quick scan and in Notifications it says that Windows Security skipped 1 file due to my exclusions or network settings, something like that. It's never skipped a file before, and I haven't set any exclusions-- in fact, when I go to the screen for exclusions there are no exclusions showing.

I want to know which file was skipped, because I want to be sure there's nothing suspicious going on, but I can't see any place to list any files that were excluded. Is there a way to list the excluded file(s)?

I did a second quick scan and got the same message.

I did an offline scan and didn't see any messages.

I'm doing a full scan now to see if it shows the message.

If I haven't set any exclusions, what other reasons might it have for excluding a file? And how can I see which file was skipped? What's especially puzzling is that I've never seen it skip a file before.

EDIT -- Full scan completed and shows the same message in Notifications: "The Windows Defender Antivirus scan skipped an item due to exclusion or network scanning settings." But I haven't changed any settings, I have no exclusions set, and this is a private home network. If this is perfectly okay then that's fine, but it's never skipped any items before tonight, and I just want to know what item was skipped so I'll know whether or not I've got a possible problem.

* Moved from Win 10/Security

Answer 1

Hello to you all,

I don't usually comment on websites like these, but this recent issue with Windows Defender Antivirus really cost me so much time chasing my tail trying to work out what was going on.

Anyway, I have recently searched manually for updates for Windows 10 and the following two files were downloaded and installed today:

Security Intelligence Update for Windows Defender Antivirus - KB2267602 (Version 1.313.24.0)

Update for Windows Defender Antivirus antimalware platform - KB4052623 (Version 4.18.2003.8)

After re-starting my laptop (don't ask me why I did it), I straight away carried out a quick scan of my laptop using Windows Defender Antivirus and the problem with the notification of "Item skipped during scan" had gone.

I wish you all luck after downloading the updates and hope you have the same outcome as I did.

Cheers from Australia!

Answer 2

Judging from common experiences between multiple users, it seems this is a bug that has become evident after recent updates in Windows Defender as of 22 March 2020.

It opposes no threat, and it can be ignored. Hopefully it will be fixed by Windows soon.

Answer 3

The skipped elements are network files. After discussing this behavior within my blog Windows 10: Defender skips elements during scan, the reason for the message became clear. Defender avoids to scan network files (I postulate, that Microsoft has changed that recently). 

You can ignore the warning - or you may use the workaround discussed within my blog post Windows 10: Fix for skipped Defender scans

HTH

Answer 4

Same Irritating message "Items skipped during scan on three computers apparently since the latest Windows 10 updates. I have NO exclusions and my Network settings have not changed. I will guess that this bug will likely go away with a future Windows update.

Answer 5

Yep, I knew that huge checklist was **** as soon as I read it. It's a bug, and I'm ignoring it, plain and simple, but thanks for the useful answers Microsoft. ; /