Another day, another several hours wasted trying to get an update to some reputable 3rd party software to download and run on my PC without breaking the aircraft I had been planning to fly.
I know quite a lot of devs have had their products badly impacted by over-zealous MS Defender as of late, but you might think, as a Microsoft product, that there might be a way of the MSFS bit of MS letting the MS Defender bit know what sort of things are causing these constant false positives.
I mean, it’s enough to make me want to switch to XBox! (that was a joke)
1 Like
It’s up to each dev to get their installers digitally signed. If it’s not signed, Defender will pitch a fit - no way around that.
By the way, I just got an email today from Blackbird that their Turbo Porter installer is now signed, so Defender won’t flag it anymore. I downloaded a fresh copy, but since the email stated that there were no changes to the actual model package, I just deleted my old installer and tucked the new one away.
1 Like
Well, it’s also has something to do with the way Defender works and the fact that some of the threat parameters it uses are basically any HTML gauge in MSFS… It’s a very blunt tool.
2 Likes
I set the folder for MSFS to be excluded from scans. The folder with Community & Official in, that is.
1 Like
Just how do you do that in Defender? I’d love to know and I’m sure many others would too!
I’ll upload a screenshot when I get home.
Windows key; search ‘Windows Security’. Open app. Click the top left square ‘Virus & Threat Protection’. In ‘Virus & threat protection settings’ click ‘Manage settings’. Scroll to the bottom of that page, there’s a section on Exclusions. Click ‘Add or remove exclusions’.
You can add and manage existing exclusions from the resulting page.
(This is assuming you’re on Windows 11 but IIRC Windows 10 is about the same.)
1 Like
Thanks - easy once you know where the feature is! I was trying to set the exclusions from within Defender itself, but that only allows you to exclude apps.
1 Like
Yeah. Defender is a bit old-fashioned that way 
ofc, this still won’t stop it from blocking false-positive downloads, I guess - not unless you exclude the browser download location?
Yes. You can turn off file protection temporarily but it will turn it back on automatically after a bit.
You can always unblock the download. It’s a pain, I know, but provided you’re an admin you can ultimately always do what you want to do.
Wasnt just the PMS GTN750 that suffered:
I think all this is Defender specific? I use McAfee and that switches off Defender. No problems with MSFS.
why use it if it causes grief?
Because I’ve found I get other kinds of grief from other AV software!
Using Free Panda AntiVirus I have no problems and it does not seem to have a performance impact like some. Been using it for years.
I use a McAfee subscription on my machines as it provides me with other benefits.
There is more than just MSFS. I find the VPN facility for example also very useful. But I can say that I have no issues at all with MSFS. Which is why I mentioned that these problems seem to be Defender specific.
If other virus scanners also give you issues then there may be more going on then just virus scanner interference.
You assume the ‘other kinds of grief’ were MSFS related…
I’ve tried various AV solutions over the years both paid and free all of them have their pros and cons, but I’ve always been underwhelmed by the likes of Norton and McAfee too the last time I had it. But that’s beside the point - the thread is about Defender. Lots of folk use Defender and will continue to do so. So they need to be aware that it can cause issues.
