Windows 10: Windows Defender "Windows Module Installer Worker"

Hi,

I'm trying to use Windows Defender as my defense solution because I'd like to use the Controlled Folders feature, but am having a few problems.

System is on 1709 x64 16299.431. No other antivirus, firewall or anything of note running.

First, the most annoying one: after activating Windows Defender, my system often gets stuck with the "Windows Module Installer Worker" process consuming an entire core worth of processing (plus some disk usage) and it just won't finish what it is doing until a reboot or I kill the process. I understand Windows Defender might be trying to update, but it's getting stuck maybe. This happens more often when waking from sleep/hibernate.
Note that I have Automatic Updates disabled via GPO, as well as automatic drivers updates disabled. The offending process never shows up arbitrarily like this when I have Defender disabled, and during normal Windows Updates it takes my system just a minute or two to finish its job. I'm confident this problem is related to Windows Defender, and only happens when it is activated.
This would be a deal-breaker to using Windows Defender for me, so I hope to find a fix.

Second: I'm trying to protect some entire drives from the root (D:\, E:\, ...) but it doesn't seem to work (as in, protect them from writes). I have an unlisted program I'm using to try saving files, and the writes are successfully blocked if I add specific folders to the list of Protected Folders (e.g. D:\foldername), but have no effect on drive roots.

Third: I'd very much like to remove some of the default folders from the Protected Folders list. After some searching, I realize this is by design from MS, but it's a nuisance for my use case. Does anyone know of a way to hack them off?


Alternatively: does anyone know of a simpler solution to block read/write access from unlisted programs to specific folders? I'd rather not use Windows Defender at all, really.

:)

 

Installing Apps on Windows 10 Has Windows Defender Finding Malware

Hi Tommy,

Welcome to the Microsoft Community.

• 
  Is this issue specific to third party apps?
  

I would suggest you to open Windows defender and add exclusions and check if it helps. Follow the steps to add exclusions in windows Defender.

• 
  Type Windows defender settings in the search bar and press enter
  
• 
  Under Exclusions click on Add Exclusion
  

Hope this information helps. Reply to the post with an updated status of the issue so that we can assist you further.

 

Windows Defender problem

Hi Ernst,

To troubleshoot this issue, we suggest that you check the Windows Defender service if it's running. If you are using a third party spyware/malware program, it may disable the Windows Defender service. To do this, please follow the steps below:

• Press Windows + R key.
• Type services.msc.
• Right-click Windows Defender service and click
  Start.

Let us know the result.