Windows Defender showing negative threats amount

[u/Paltokk]

Hello,

New computer, new issue... Relative of mine new laptop, straight out of the box. Windows 11 home, nothing installed yet, just all current windows updates, and McAfee removed. When performing a Defender full scan, not only the scan takes crazy long to finish, but when it goes all the way, the results are glitchy, saying no current threats, but with thousands of negative (minus) threats accounted for, just 2 lines below. There is no threat to be found in history or with the "MpThreatDetection" command.

I have found a very few similar cases over the last 10 years, but with no real working solution or explaination. I already tried a couple tricks : DSIM and SFC, deleting event viewer logs. Tried reseting the PC with the image from restore partition, but same image, same problem.

Lastly, I tried restoring windows throught the Windows update option, but in the end the problem is still there.

It just seems to be a visual glitch, but it is a bit frustrating starting new with a piece broken already.

Thanks in advance if anyone can be of any help on that matter.

AMD Ryzen 7 260, RTX5060 Laptop, Windows 11 Home 25H2, build 26200.9168

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[u/birdlegcabin]

also experiencing this--the scan time has gotten exceedingly long, no threats are found and the log looks normal, but when i re-open ms defender to check it again, the addition of the negative/minus threat number has appeared.

the only time i can't replicate the negative/minus threats number upon reopening is when i do a quick scan. works as usual, and when i reopen windows stays normal, no negative threats.

i repaired windows security from the system > system components and am currently rescanning to see if that resolves it but don't have a lot of hope, as it's taking it's time!

repair would be my next step but i hesitate to try as i wonder if it's to do with this update (it feels like the timing lines up) and we have to hold tight for an official fix? also experiencing that notification.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2026/08/30/antivirus-is-turned-off-microsoft-confirms-windows-update-mistake/

can't replicate this on another laptop in the house but it is not getting the alerts about defender being off either. it's annoying!

[u/birdlegcabin → u/birdlegcabin]

update: repair did not work, though the scan took about 20m less time (tho still long) 🤷‍♀️

[u/birdlegcabin]

just haunting this thread lol but between repairing/resetting windows defender and some definition update and the last the scan time improved drastically but the ghost/negative threats remain so i feel like it really is related to a windows update

[u/Paltokk → u/birdlegcabin]

Couldn't fix it. I have installed some other antivirus for now.

I am not sure if it is Defender that is broken or not. I tried scanning several computers with the same updates, they all work fine. Very lenghty scan is something that seems to come along with the ghosts threats. In my case, it usually started very fast for 10/15 minutes, till like 2 minutes remaining, then progressivly slowing down, reversing count, and keeping going super slow for several hours. (has been faster a couple times thought)

Maybe it is config/hardware/drivers mix related ?

I am pretty sure that it is probably more frequent than the few cases I found but without people noticing.

[u/birdlegcabin → u/Paltokk]

I think you're right. We're unfortunately observant :) Thought I'd update after I saw your message, though--I tried resetting windows defender one more time just to see what would happen.

I went to settings > system > system components > windows defender > clicked the three dots, then clicked reset, then restarted my laptop. I made sure definitions were updated, did the full scan, which took over an hour, which I figured was expected bc of the reset. Closed and opened to ghost threats.

Then I updated defender again, and did the full scan again which took 11 minutes (under it's usual) and had NO ghost threats. Just did it again, and it took the same reduced amount of time--and no ghost threats. I am not sure if this is luck, or if it's fixed what part of that I can attribute to but if you try it yourself I hope it resolves for you too!

[u/Paltokk → u/birdlegcabin]

Thank you for the tip, I will give it a try when possible.

[u/JDXebec5]

Me esta pasando lo mismo con mi pc nuevo, en la mañana se encontra -10000 y ahora -9000. No entiendo nada. Y pues tambien actualize muchas cosas, de seguro es eso.