Windows 10: Defender taking too long to quick scan... How can this be fixed?

My laptop just updated today and now defender is taking too long to do a quick scan, scanning too many files and won't respond. I don't have a slow hard drive. I don't have too many files. And I don't have any malware issues, ram issues or cpu issues... How can this be fixed?

:)

 

Windows Defender - Quick Scan

Windows defender no longer offers a quick scan option.

My options are:

• Scan
• Advanced Scan

• Full Scan
• Custom Scan
• Windows Defender Offline scan

Whichever option I check, the scan will need to run for hours to complete.

Is a quick scan available?

How do I restore this feature?

 

Since March-2023 update of Windows Defender Quick scan takes long time!

Since March-2023 update of Windows Defender (Platform: 4.18.2303.8 | Engine: 1.1.20200.4 | Security intelligence update version: 1.387.740.0) Quick scan takes every third time 25 minutes instead of 5 minutes. Windows Defender is configured on my Windows Server 2019 to make one Quick scan per hour.

The CPU usage in an normal Quick scan is constant, while in a long Quick scan it starts constant but after a 2 Minutes it goes down and sporadically it goes up for a few moments. No errors are reported in the logfiles!

 

Windows Defender quick scan is taking waaay too long

It sounds to me as though it's doing a Full scan and not a quick scan. A quick scan should take about 10 minutes.