Windows 10: can not scan my PC using microsoft defender

Hello all,

my name is Cathy, but I prefer to be called cat. I am having a major problem. I am running windows 10 and once in awhile I like to scan my whole system with windows defender. Just to be safe. I have not done this in a while, so I went to start the advanced scan, and this message popped up at me, and I can't remember this word for word but it said something like "can not scan, the admin has limited access." Whatever that means. This is also happening with the quick scan as well. That's not word for word but you get the gist of it. I looked up how to fix it on google, and it looks like a computer whiz could do it maybe, but I am not a computer whiz. I really did not want to get another virus scanner because I have to use a screen reader and not all virus scanners work with that. I want to make sure my PC is protected and this virus scanner is not working. Also, it disappeared from the system tray to, maybe I closed it by mistake? I don't know. I really hope I don't have to recover this thing, that would be a nightmare! Anything you guys can suggest would be great, thanks.

:)

 

defender scans

Hi Ian,

Thanks for posting your query on Microsoft Community.

This issue might occur if you have set any task scheduler for Windows Defender.

I suggest you to delete the task for Windows defender and check if it helps.

Follow the below steps:

• 
  Search and open Schedule tasks.
  
• 
  In the left-hand menu, open the Task Scheduler Library, then select
  Microsoft >Windows >Windows Defender.
  
• 
  Double-click Windows Defender Scheduled Scan.
  
• 
  Select the Triggers panel, then select Delete.
  

Hope it helps, reply to us with the status of your issue. We will be happy to assist you.

 

Windows defender custom scan does not scan external drives

Hi Joe,

to scan external drives using Windows Defender, follow the steps provided below.

• Open Windows Defender.
• Go to Settings tab.
• Select the Advanced option.
• tick the checkbox for Scan removable drives.

Regards.

 

Microsoft Defender Offline Scan

Restored the Macrium Image and got my Recovery partitions back:






So as expected, I had a bunch of updates to do:





After the updates, I gave Microsoft Defender Offline a try and it worked!









And this just shows that I'm back at the latest version build of 20H2:





This one was my fault and I admit I was the culprit of my own troubles. It was just a coincidence that I used Partition Wizard around the same time the Cumulative Updates were going on from Oct 28th to November 11th and it gave me the suspicion to suspect them being responsible for the Offline scan problem.

I mean who the heck would of ever thought that a Recovery Partition would have anything to do with an Offline Scan in an Online world?

A special thanks to OldNavyGuy for his suggestion that a Windows Recovery Partition being deleted was the problem.