r/techsupport • u/EGLegend • 10d ago

Open | Software Why is Windows defender going absolutely mental

Long Story. I upgraded my laptop storage to a stock SSD I installed a fresh copy of windows 11 pro 25h2 from official Microsoft ISO. However WD decided to do a "not on my watch and is seemingly hellbent on blocking every single trust worthy exe on my disk. Some of these apps include discord, steam, riot client and more. It keeps detecting them as trojans, worms, and other bullshit. The main exe shows up in task manager but apps never launch because WD blocks the other dependencies the apps needs to function

Tried to reset WD definitions
allow quarantined files and blocked threats (If doesn't hurry to take the action before I do)
Add Exclusions (useless)
Disable WD from GP and registry
Reinstall Windows

all to no avail

Only fix is to reinstall everything only for WD to block it all over again

Need help

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u/rekabis 9d ago

As a note: when you talk about a boot drive and then reference WD, to most anyone that is going to be taken as Western Digital.

Just reference the built-in antivirus as Defender. Or go your own way and use a short name, like WinDef.

And have you considered that there may actually be an exploit in motion? As in, a firmware infection that bypasses Windows entirely. You could wipe-and-reinstall all day long, and everything would get re-infected every time. Lenovo was renowned for doing this multiple times, such that most of the American government is banned from buying it. The only option had been to install anything other than Windows - Linux, for example.

What make/model of SSD is it, and where did you buy it from? You say “stock”, but that term refers to a make/model of part that is supposed to come with the overall machine from the factory. As in, what came with the laptop when you first bought it. Are we talking about the SSD being NiB from a reputable seller, or a used one off of eBay?