Windows 10: Defender not Running Regular Scan

I updated to Win 10 Home 1607 last Friday Aug 19 from Win7.
However Win10 loaded with MSE. I managed to uninstall, then I enabled Defender.

I read that Automatic maintenance will schedule regular scans for Defender. Is this correct? This has not happened since last Friday?
Do I need to setup a Scheduled Task? Or is it taken care by Automatic maintenance?

How do I know if Automatic Maintenance is working? Or maybe something wrong with Defender?
In Control Panel> System> Security> Maintenance and under ' allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer...' there is no message saying when Automatic maintenance last ran? Should there be?
Can I test Automatic maintenance is working?

PS I notice in 'Antivirus, Firewalls, Security' forum somebody has just posted that Defender has not scanned since end of last week? Maybe this is my issue?

:)

 

Windows Defender scan frequency

How do I set up Windows Defender to scan on a regular basis?

 

On Windows 10 Windows Defender giving warnings about Malware Detected but shows nothing in History.

I ran a Defender scan overnight last night while
offline and it picked up the Browser Modifier in two parts. (Darn it I forgot to take a snip of it before removing it.) Defender has never found it during a scan offline before and neither has the Microsoft Safety Scanner. In the past Defender only found
it while online during regular monitoring. Hopefully, that will be the end of it now. I'm running another scan now while
online, just to see what happens.

I'll keep you posted.

 

There are some good tutorials on this site showing how to set up Defender. One link posted by Brink (in 8 forums) shows how to set up the scheduled scan. This should apply to Win 10 also. Being that you uninstalled MSE, you may have to reset the scheduling in the task scheduler.

Windows Defender Scheduled Scan - Set Up in Windows 8

Limited Periodic Scanning - Turn On or Off in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Windows Defender Real-time Protection - Turn On or Off in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

I hope this helps.

Yes, it could be a Win issue. Check your settings in the task scheduler. Also, sometimes turning off Defender, rebooting & then turning it on & rebooting again solves the issue.

 

I had to run a script in Command Prompt (Admin) and then set up a Windows Defender Auto Scan in Task Scheduler to get things back to working properly. I honestly believe the recent Anniversary Update somehow broke my Windows Defender Auto Scan that has always worked properly in the past. If interested, see the thread I started about this issue and the script is listed there.

 

My scheduled scan is still not running regulary. I set a scheduled task for 8pm, but, sometimes it runs and sometimes it doesn't? When it does run it is run at some time other than 8pm?

I doubled checked the task and noticed under 'Actions', the Program/script says C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\\MpCmdRun.exe


Firstly there are no quotation marks around C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\\MpCmdRun.exe?

Secondly there are 2 slashes between Defender and MPCmdRun.exe?

This doesn't seem right to me? (I have never set a scheduled task ever before)
Can someone critique this setting?

 

I am quite sure the double slashes is not correct. I can't recall about the quotes. Since the scheduled task for doing this scan was so erratic and rarely worked on my pc, I have removed it so everything is back like it was before the automatic scans stopped working. My research seems to indicate the automatic scans by Defender stopped working with build 1607. I hope MS is aware of this and a fix will be forthcoming. Once such a fix comes (if it ever does), I wanted the settings back to default with no scheduled scan entered. It's really not dependable at all at least in my experience. If no fix comes, I will just get in the habit of manually scanning Windows Defender which is a return to the way it used to be in days gone by.

 

Have a look at this post & see if any info here can help.

Solved Windows Defender No Longer Performs AutoScan - Windows 10 Forums

 

Here's mine, and it's working:





Program/script = "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Defender\MpCmdRun.exe" Scan - ScheduleJob
Argument = Scan -ScheduleJob

 

Finally, my Windows Defender ran an autoscan again today. The only thing I had done differently was a suggestion from an earlier post in this thread by Borg 386. I turned off real time protection in Defender and restarted my PC. Upon reboot, Windows Defender real time protection had turned itself back on. I waited awhile, rechecked Defender, and it had run an autoscan. I hope the Defender autoscans continue to work and will monitor this over the next few days.

 

@simrick

I tried your Program / script and unfortunately Defender did not run. Got the (0x2) error.

Can you tell me your settings in your ' General', 'Conditions' and "Settings'?

 

Yes, sure.
Could be a confusion between an Operational Code and an Event Error Code? I get an Operational Code of (2) or (0x2). Defender shows it completed the task successfully.

Event Properties

 

My Settings:
General - Location: \Microsoft\Windows\Windows Defender
Run with Highest Privileges
Configured for Win 10
Conditions - Checks in Stop if computer ceases to be idle & Start Task only if computer is on AC power
Settings - Checks in boxes 1,2,4,5

Again, it ran successfully one time yesterday afternoon. We shall see whether that was just an anomaly or whether it is actually fixed

 

edit: Now I see my scheduled scan is not running either. Shows 0x2. I'm watching scheduled scans run on the other three computers that don't have AU but not on the one with it. Again, no issues before the AU. MS really messed this up.

The AU broke something with Defender. I have had a scheduled task for Definition updates since Windows 8. They always worked fine, even in Windows 10. Until the AU. I get an error (0x80070002) that the file can't be found. The same argument has been used since Windows 8 (“C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\MpCmdRun.exe” -SignatureUpdate​) but now it can't find it? It works fine with no error on my other three Win 10 machines that don't have the AU.

Scheduled Defender Definition Updates Not Completing After AU - Windows 10 Forums

I will try HokieMan's solution for his issue and see if it helps.

 

Hi,

I hope this is the right thread. I can't get task scheduler to run definition updates in Windows defender. Windows defender opens at the trigger time but just nothing. Has anyone got this working? I followed instructions from a couple of threads:

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/update...dates-disabled

Manage data usage and Windows updates in Windows 10 - Microsoft Community