Windows 10: Specify Windows Defender Antivirus Scheduled Scan Type in Windows 10

How to: Specify Windows Defender Antivirus Scheduled Scan Type in Windows 10

How to Specify Scheduled Scan Type for Windows Defender Antivirus in Windows 10


Windows Defender Antivirus.

Windows Defender Antivirus helps protect your PC against malware (malicious software) like viruses, spyware, and other potentially unwanted software. Malware can infect your PC without your knowledge: it might install itself from an email message, when you connect to the Internet, or when you install certain apps using a USB flash drive, CD, DVD, or other removable media. Some malware can also be programmed to run at unexpected times, not only when it's installed.

Windows Defender Antivirus regularly scans your device to help keep it safe. Windows tries to do this while you are not using your device so it doesnt interfere with your work. You can also schedule Windows Defender Antivirus to scan at a time and frequency that you choose.

By default, Windows Defender Antivirus will perform a Quick Scan during a scheduled scan.

This tutorial will show you how to specify to use a Quick Full scan type during a scheduled scan by Windows Defender Antivirus in Windows 10.

You must be signed in as an administrator to specify a scheduled scan type to use for Windows Defender Antivirus.



Contents

• Option One: To See Current Scheduled Scan Type for Windows Defender Antivirus
• Option Two: To Specify Scheduled Scan Type for Windows Defender Antivirus in PowerShell
• Option Three: To Specify Scheduled Scan Type for Windows Defender Antivirus in Local Group Policy Editor
• Option Four: To Specify Scheduled Scan Type for Windows Defender Antivirus using a REG file for Local Group Policy

OPTION ONE [/i] To See Current Scheduled Scan Type for Windows Defender Antivirus
1 Open an elevated PowerShell.

2 Copy and paste the command below into the elevated PowerShell, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
Get-MpPreference | select ScanParameters
3 You will now see either 1 for Quick scan or 2 for Full scan in the ScanParameters results.

4 You can now close the elevated PowerShell window if you like.









OPTION TWO [/i] To Specify Scheduled Scan Type for Windows Defender Antivirus in PowerShell
This option will set the ScanParameters DWORD value in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Scan key in Registry Editor.


1 Open an elevated PowerShell.

2 Type the command below into the elevated PowerShell, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
Set-MpPreference -ScanParameters <value>

Substitute <value> in the command above with a value of 1 for Quick scan (default) or 2 for Full scan for what you want to specify.

For example: Set-MpPreference -ScanParameters 1



3 You can now close the elevated PowerShell window if you like.









OPTION THREE [/i] To Specify Scheduled Scan Type for Windows Defender Antivirus in Local Group Policy Editor
The Local Group Policy Editor is only available in the Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions.

If the policy in this option is enabled to specify, it will override Option Two.

All editions can use Option Two or Option Four.


1 Open the Local Group Policy Editor.

2 In the left pane of Local Group Policy Editor, navigate to the location below. (see screenshot below)
Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Windows Defender Antivirus/Scan




3 In the right pane of Scan in Local Group Policy Editor, double click/tap on the Specify the scan type to use for a scheduled scan policy to edit it. (see screenshot above)

4 Do step 5 (specify) or step 6 (undo) below for what you would like to do.


5. To Enable Policy to Specify Scheduled Scan Type for Windows Defender Antivirus
A) Select (dot) Enabled. (see screenshot below)

B) Under Options, select Quick scan (default) or Full scan for what you want to specify, click/tap on OK, and go to step 7 below.
6. To Undo Policy to Not Specify Scheduled Scan Type for Windows Defender Antivirus
A) Select (dot) Not Configured or Disabled, click/tap on OK, and go to step 7 below. (see screenshot below)

Not Configured is the default setting.




7 When finished, you can close the Local Group Policy Editor if you like.





OPTION FOUR [/i] To Specify Scheduled Scan Type for Windows Defender Antivirus using a REG file for Local Group Policy
The option is for the same policy as Option Three.

If the policy in this option is enabled to specify, it will override Option Two.

The downloadable .reg files below will modify the DWORD value in the registry key below.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Scan

ScanParameters DWORD

<delete> = Undo (default)
1 = Quick scan
2 = Full scan


1 Do step 2 (quick), step 3 (full) , or step 4 (undo) below for what you would like to do.


2. To Enable Policy to Specify "Quick scan" for Scheduled Scan Type
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 5 below.

Specify_Quick_Scan_for_scheduled_scan_by_Windows_Defender_Antivirus.reg

Download

3. To Enable Policy to Specify "Full scan" for Scheduled Scan Type
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 5 below.

Specify_Full_Scan_for_scheduled_scan_by_Windows_Defender_Antivirus.reg

Download

4. To Undo Policy to Not Specify Scheduled Scan Type for Windows Defender Antivirus
This is the default setting.

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 5 below.

Undo_policy_to_Specify_scan_type_for_scheduled_scan_by_Windows_Defender_Antivirus.reg

Download
5 Save the .reg file to your desktop.

6 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

7 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

8 You can now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.

Related Tutorials

• How to Turn On or Off Windows Defender Antivirus in Windows 10
• How to Change Windows Defender Antivirus Maximum CPU Usage for a Scan in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off Periodic Scanning with Windows Defender Antivirus in Windows 10
• How to Manually Scan Files, Folders, and Drives with Windows Defender Antivirus in Windows 10
• How to Schedule a Scan in Windows Defender Antivirus in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Scan with Windows Defender Context Menu in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Windows Defender Antivirus context menu in Windows 10
• How to Enable or Disable Scan Archive Files by Windows Defender in Windows 10
• Enable or Disable Scan Mapped Network Drives with Windows Defender in Windows 10
• Enable or Disable Scan Removable Drives during Windows Defender Full Scan in Windows 10

:)

 

Scheduling Windows Defender scans

Hi Gary,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



I understand your query related to Scheduling Windows Defender Scan using Task Scheduler.



Ideally, when you schedule a task using Task Scheduler it should run during the time. However, if the PC was not switched on at that particular interval then the scan might have taken place.



You can try enabling the History of tasks in Task Scheduler to check more information.

1. Press Windows key + R. This will open
   Run. Alternatively, you can go to Start and search for Run.
   
2. In Run dialog box, type taskschd.mscand hit
   Enter.
   
3. Now right click on the Action tab
   
4. Select Enable All Tasks History
   

You may also want to try changing the settings of the task that you have scheduled.

1. Press Windows key + R. This will open
   Run. Alternatively, you can go to Start and search for Run.
   
2. In Run dialog box, type taskschd.mscand hit
   Enter.
   
3. Double click on the task that you have scheduled
   
4. Under General tab, change the settings for
   when the task should run.
   
5. Now under Settings tab adjust the settings
   as per your compatibility.
   

For additional information, you can refer the articles below.

• Schedule a scan in Windows Defender Antivirus
  
• Windows Defender - How to schedule a scan?
  

In addition, you may also post your query on
TechNet forums, where we have expertise and support professionals who are well equipped with the knowledge to assist you with your query.



Regards,

Prakhar Khare

Microsoft Community – Moderator

 

scheduling Windows Defender full scan: problems and questions

I have a new Windows 10 Pro 64 bit laptop that I am configuring. I am coming from a Windows 7 desktop. Much has changed.


For its malware defense, I am using Windows Defender and Malwarebytes Premium.


Scheduling Malwarebytes to scan at a certain time of day is trivial, but I have found it difficult to schedule Windows Defender to do a full scan.


~~~~~~~~~~

I first tried to schedule Windows Defender using Schedule tasks as described here.


That worked, except that I see no option to specify a full scan, so surely it is doing the default of a quick scan.

Story to be continued below...


~~~~~~~~~~


I next stumbled across other links that said that you can control many (all?) aspects of Windows Defender scans via Group Policy.


The 3 best links being this, and this, and this.

So, I opened Group Policy Management Editor and made these changes from the defaults:


Code:

Problem: when I try to make the "Specify the day of the week to run a scheduled scan" change above, after I click the OK button, the value changes from my Enabled setting to Disabled!

What the heck is going on?


My guess was that maybe I had some other setting that conflicted with this one, which was causing the auto reset to Disabled. I scoured thru all the settings, but found nothing.

Please advise!


Another problem: to see if a scheduled scan would take place, I tried temporarily changing the "Specify the time of day to run a scheduled scan" value to 2 minutes past my current time. When the current time reached that, no scan took place.


Is the Group Policy alone insufficient to trigger a scan?


~~~~~~~~~~


Doing more web searching, I eventually found out how to make Schedule tasks have Windows Defender do a full scan. As described in this link, you must supply these args to the MpCmdRun.exe program

Code:

Question: what is considered the best way to configure Windows? Using tools like Schedule tasks? Or should I always try to get stuff to work via Group Policy of possible?

I am new to Group Policy, but it seems like the more official and thorough way. Please confirm or deny, and further enlighten me.

~~~~~~~~~~

If Group Policy is the way to go, there is one more setting that concerns me.

Under Scan is a "Specify the maximum depth to scan archive files" setting.

The default is 0, which, if I understand the help text (and all links I found when searched), means that it scans to 0 depth. In other words, it does not drill down inside any directories at all!

That sounds awful, and stupid. It also contradicts how a setting of 0 in other contexts means there is no limit.

I want a setting that drills down as deep as necessary into the archive, I want everything scanned!

Any way to achieve that?

I suppose that I could specify a really large value, but that it is an inelegant hack that should not have to do.

 

can't enable "Specify the day of the week to run a scheduled scan"

run gpmc.msc (on a Server 2012 or Win10 machine with RSAT installed)

Computer Configuration => Policies => Administrative Templates... => Windows Components => Windows Defender Antivirus => Scan

"Check for the latest virus and spyware definitions before running a scheduled scan" is enabled

"Specify the scan type to use for a scheduled scan" is enabled and options "Specify the scan type to use for a scheduled scan" set to quick scan

HOWEVER:

"Specify the day of the week to run a scheduled scan" gives me some grief: I enable it and select "Saturday" in the "Specify the day..." dropdown menu and OK (or Apply), but it stays not configured like I canceled the enable window. Any other specific day
to no avail, but "every day" works (but I don't want every day).

(I enabled "Specify the time of day to run a scheduled scan" but that didn't help, even set the turn off defender av and realtime protection to disabled; i.e. made sure those were explicitly on)

I don't know what the default schedule is (and it seems to not be running on a bunch of my machines: maybe because we are edu versions?); anyway, just interested in forcing stuff on and have that default scan be on the weekends.

 

How to schedule Windows defender scan?

Hi P.

I am an independent advisor here to help

Schedule a scan in Windows Defender Antivirus

in the windows search bar on the lower left of your desktop, Search for and open Schedule tasks.

In the left pane, expand Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows, and then scroll down and select the Windows Defender folder.

In the top center pane, double-click Windows Defender Scheduled Scan

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/402613...

 

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.