Windows 10: Windows defender causing slow icon display

So in another thread I questioned why on boot up my desktop icons were a bit slow in drawing themselves. They take a few seconds to fully draw with a number of them showing as white generic paper icons. I then found folders with a large number of exe files were also slow to display the icons. Increasing icon cache, rebuilding it didn't make a difference. I was also noticing that the folders slow to draw the icons once finished gave no further grief if I subsequently opened them. Until the next reboot!

Finally i I know why, it's Windows defender. The antimalware service is kicking in causing the slow icon draw. I suppose it's doing its thing but the slow draw of the icons on the desktop when I log in annoys me. It's only a few seconds but running SSD and given the cost of the system I expect it to be a bit more instant. I am sure it's not as bad as this on my Windows 7 laptop which runs security essentials. I wondered if there was any advice to stop this behaviour. I turned off real time protection temporarily and can confirm that the folders were then drawing the exe icons instantly. So definitely defender the culprit.

i am also considering trying another paid anti virus. Kaspersky sounds like it has good rep and is lightweight - I was only going to go for the anti virus / real time protection aspect as I am happy with Windows in built firewall. Does it play nice with Windows 10? I just want something light on resources, nag free and something that won't interfere with the drawing of the icons. I thought defender being integrated and an MS product would give the littlest grief but I guess I'm wrong. Unless something can be set to prevent it real time scanning the desktop icons. I'd be happy if I could at least avoid that.

:)

 

Defender real time protection causes slow icon drawing (exe files)

Windows defender is causing slow Drawing of icons for .exe because of defender. my downloads folder has numerous exe files and they are slow to draw for several seconds due to antimalware service kicking in. It only happens first time I open, after that
it's instant - until the next reboot when the same happens! By turning off real time protection and it becomes instant. So defender is the culprit.

It has another annoying side effect when I reboot. My desktop displays and some of the shortcut icons on here takes a few seconds to display. They have white generic paper icons on some of them before they all draw properly. Again it's defender that is causing
it.

This needs addressing by MS I think

 

Windows Defender is on but after reboots its brick wall icon does not show up in the area reserved for ^show hidden icons

Original Title: Windows Defender -- Is it active?

According to Settings Windows Defender is on but after reboots its brick wall icon does not show up in the area reserved for ^show hidden icons. Is Windows Defender actually on immediately after reboots or when the computer is powered back up after being
turned off even if its Icon is not displayed when the ^show hidden icons is selected?

The Defender Icon does show up and then resides as a hidden Icon if I manually go to settings and select the "use Windows Defender" selection.

 

I'm wondering how you determined that defender is causing this problem? I would think that this is more of a graphic driver issue since it's an image rendering problem.

 

Turning off real time protection stops the issue. Plus I see the service kicking in via task manager.

cheers, Wayne

 

I know you've likely tried this but I have to ask if you have tried a third party AV and seen how it works with that??

 

I haven't but will prob end up giving that a shot. I preferred to go with defender as it's supposed to be lightweight and integrates nicely. I was hoping there were tips to stop it scanning at the very least desktop shortcuts on start up. I was pondering kaspersky and only the anti virus part as I am more than happy with Windows own firewall. Which anti virus do you use? I am curious if other users of defender notice similar though.

 

as a temporary measure to test

if you tell it to ignore the desktop folder, put in an exception for it, does it stop the issue?

 

Can you do that? Does that pertain to real time scanning? I'll definetely try that first before going down the kaspersky route. Thanks for that suggestion, I'll let you know when my wife lets me back on the computer, lol. I'd be very interested to know what you use given you high knowledge and rep.

cheers
wayne

 

Paul has a good idea here,

As for a third party AV.,. I would try a free one like AVG or Avast. That way you don't have to totally commit to a pay version and both are lightweight and work well with 10.

 

Thanks chaps. I really appreciate the excellent advice. I will try the exception first and if no dice then a freebie as suggested. I will update the thread later hopefully

 

I hope things work out.. if not post the results you get.

 

good luck with it, hope it works

just suddenly thought of this as some media software I use recommend you to except the media library to stop defender scanning the files as you play them (not had an issue so never actually tried it though)

 

Exclusions seems to be working but i do need to play around with it more. At first I set a folder exclusion for c:users/wayne/desktop but that didn't solve the lagging icon draw of my desktop icons upon boot. So I thought maybe I should look to exclude the executables these shortcuts point at. I know these are all safe. So I did a couple of them and they seemed to draw instantly on desktop load after booting. There are others slightly lagging so I will work through these over time. I hope by doing this there will be big improvement. I also excluded my downloads folder temporarily as this has quite a few executables in it. This also showed instantaneous drawing of icons after doing this. I removed that exclusion straight after because I think it's pretty important this is scanned. So I guess I'm reasonably content but will feedback more later. It's a slight pain to work through but once I've done it the upkeep will be small as I don't often add new stuff to my desktop. I have the programs I like and it rarely changes.

i did Google around and whilst not widespread it seems security essentials and defender does interfere with icon drawing of exe files for a fair number of people. The exclusions are an easy workaround if it works as I think I am seeing. I would obviously only exclude stuff I know is safe, mainly installed games from steam executables

 

Yes, this has happened to me since MSE/W7 days. MS should do something about this. I really like WD.