Windows 10: W10 Defender - no exclusion but a file IS excluded from scan...

Today Defender gave me a false positive of a Trojan virus in a app that I know is clean (as admitted by many people on the internet and I used it many times before and nothing happened).

After it gave me the false positive, I brought back the file/app from the quarantine and it let me use it normally. I did a single file scan of that file afterwards to see if Defender will give me a positive again but it said a file was ommited in scan so I thought it probably added that file to the exclusion list but... it's not there. The list is empty. How can I un-exclude a "ghost" exclusion?

submitted by /u/BududubNow
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:)

 

Unable to Remove Exclusions from Windows Defender

Thank you for posting back. If you trust a file, file type, folder, or a process that Windows Defender Antivirus has detected as malicious, you can stop Windows Defender Antivirus from alerting you or blocking the program by adding the file to
the exclusion list. It seems that it was added automatically. We suggest that you follow these steps:

• Go to Settings and select Update & security.
• Click Windows Defender.
• Look for Exclusions and select Add an exclusion.
• Navigate to the file, folder, or process, and select Exclude this file.

If the steps provided did not work, we recommend that you boot your device to
Safe Mode and redo the process.

Let us know if you need further assistance.

 

Exclusions

An exclusion is a way to keep (deny) certain files and/or folders from being scanned by your anti-virus or anti-malware scanner. This is typically accomplished by changing settings...adding a file or folder to the software's exclusion
list so the scanning engine will ignore it. Reasons for excluding a file are to prevent potential conflicts with your anti-virus, eliminate

false positive detection's of a legitimate file and to speed up the scanning process.

• What Files Should You Exclude?
• How to Add an exclusion to Windows Defender
• How to Make Microsoft Security Essentials Scan Faster by Excluding Certain
  File Types

 

Windows Defender Antivirus Scan exclusions

If there is anything in Windows Defender Exclusion list, then it won't be scan and if it is malicious program, it won't detect.

It is better to remove all programs from exclusion list (if you didn't add them) and run a full system scan with Windows Defender.