i always disable defender, And updates ! nothing but trouble imho ..
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Windows defender creating 100's of thousands of files
I am having an issue with Windows defender on a Vista x64 system.
Over the space of just a few weeks it creates a few hundred thousand files in the folder "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\
All the file names are of the GUID type.
This has mounted up to over 10Gb of hard disk space used at times and takes a long time to clear out. I first noticed the problem when I ran out of hard disk space and tried using CCleaner.
As far as I can see there is nothing unusual in any error logs or in the defender logs.
Why is defender doing this? I have another x64 system which is fine.
How can I stop it without resorting to disabling defender?
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Answers
yes, try to disable Windows Defender first, and see if those files can be automatically removed or manually deleted.
FYI - Windows Defender is to be discontinued this summer, and replaced by Microsoft Security Essentials. current users will continue to get the latest Malware definition files until the end of the summer.
so.... probably it is the time to consider removing it at all... :))
hope it helps,
bbao
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by: Rabbit80Posted on 2009-07-13 at 16:08:47ID: 24844881
OK - some more info..
It seems that Windows Defender has been blocking Windows Automatic Update Manager - is that enough to create quarter of a million files in the above folder in just over 3 weeks?