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[JimH]

Split discussion on Exclusions

[logan9778]

Oh God.  Don't even get me started on how much I HATE Windows Defender.

[torgny]

When adding a Process to the list of exclusions, Defender asks you for the name of the process, not a file path .... the Task Manager will inform that the name of the process is "J River Media Center" - why not add that to the list of exlusions?  Also, according to another link to a post by a MSFT employee, adding a process will exclude all files that this process "touches".  Sooooo ,,,, after you added the process, is there any need to add files, folder, etc?

I'm thinking you should also exclude not just files and folders but any MC Processes. To do that you MUST enter the entire PATH and process name into Defender. Examples:

C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 23\MC23.exe
C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 23\Media Center 23.exe
C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 23\JRService.exe
C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 23\JRWorker.exe
C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 23\JRWeb.exe

[torgny]

Thank you, tzr916.  Question, you call the list "examples" - would you say it is exhaustive or could/should other MC processes be added? Or conversely, can you make do with fewer?  Also, if you have the process added, is there any purpose to adding files and/or folders?  Thanks again // TG

I'm thinking you should also exclude not just files and folders but any MC Processes. To do that you MUST enter the entire PATH and process name into Defender. Examples:

C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 23\MC23.exe
C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 23\Media Center 23.exe
C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 23\JRService.exe
C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 23\JRWorker.exe
C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 23\JRWeb.exe

[torgny]

I followed this script for the most and added exclusions for files and folders as detailed, though not individual files.
 Later I added the five Processes as described in another post.  Later I was shocked to find that a Full Scan with Defender which used to scrub 3.5 million files now only scrubs 1.3 million.  A Quick Scan used to pick up around 1.5 million files but now reports only 50,000!  What happened to those millions of files that are now outside of Defender's reach?

I certainly don't have millions of media files, around 20,000 would be a more correct tally.  So I got very concerned and removed all Exceptions for folders, but that didn't change the file count when running Defender.  Running Advanced Scan and targeting a specific folder or device seems still to run as expected.  Is there reason to be concerned/alarmed about this precipitous drop in the number of files scanned?

By the way, MC23 is not faster or more responsive now, rather the opposite.

Thank you. Hopefully it helps with any issues users experience with running Media Center with Windows Defender.

One of the most common symptoms of an issue I've seen running MC with Defender without taming is, MC will open more "slowly", even when running MC on a system with a SSD. Meaning you start Media Center 23 but the main window doesn't immediately appear but you can see Media Center 23.exe running in the Task Manager. Eventually MC's window will load after 10+ seconds. This is something I've noticed on clean installs, but once I've added all the exceptions in place, MC will open much more quickly. I'm assuming Defender is scanning MC via its real-time scanner, hence the slowdowns. Once added to the exceptions, Defender shouldn't be scanning MC anymore and thus no more "slowdowns" when starting MC.

This is true, adding folder exceptions is likely enough. But I'll go the overkill route and add the individual files too, just in case. This is because I really don't trust Defender to exclude all files inside a folder, even though it likely does.

EDIT: I changed around the order of the tutorial, adding folder exceptions first and adding a note to file exceptions about it likely not being needed and is overkill.

[murray]

The only pop-ups you get are a notification once a week displaying a summary of any actions it's performed; e.g. scanned 3 times since last summary and found no threats.
 

I have always had defender turned off as i dont ever want any popups jumping up in the middle of a movie, summery reports or anything!
Since i use my HT for groups visiting, I dont want to interupt a movie. Is there anyway to avoid these reports/popups ever appearing?

I dont use this PC for anything, websites, internet etc etc, its entirly dedicated to JR and the HT. However I do have windows firwall turned on but have never seen any pop up appear.

Can someone please help here?

[RD James]

I have always had defender turned off as i dont ever want any popups jumping up in the middle of a movie, summery reports or anything!
Since i use my HT for groups visiting, I dont want to interupt a movie. Is there anyway to avoid these reports/popups ever appearing?

I dont use this PC for anything, websites, internet etc etc, its entirly dedicated to JR and the HT. However I do have windows firwall turned on but have never seen any pop up appear.

Can someone please help here?

There are notification options in Defender.
You can also turn on Focus Assist so that all system notifications are suppressed.

[murray]

There are notification options in Defender.
You can also turn on Focus Assist so that all system notifications are suppressed.

Where do you find Focus Assist please?

[Awesome Donkey]

Open the Settings app in Windows 10 and search for focus assist in the search bar above.

[michael123]

I am using Defender on my audio PC built in 2014 without any issues.
I mean I stream ultra-high-rez DSD255 and blu-ray rips from my NAS, never experienced any delay (after I upgraded my NAS last year)

Moreover, implementing the suggestion in this post is quite irresponsible.
IMHO

[gregtheis]

This is my first post on the forum. I wasn't sure who to ask but hopefully you can point me in the right direction. I'm a huge fan of JRiver since version 19. I recently downloaded version 25 with no problems. A couple of days ago I had to restart my dedicated music PC with OS windows10 due to a windows update on March23rd which I never trust. Now JRiver 24 and 25 open but I can't get to the files or play music or videos. I tried removing version 25 but the same problem happens with version 24. I also have windows Defender for anti-virus and protection. What do I try next? Is this something others have had problems with recently or in the past? Help please I'm already getting music withdrawals with no JRiver this weekend.
Greg Theis

[JimH]

Did you set up audio and select your output device?

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Setup

You could try restoring a backup from a version that worked, or just checking its settings.

I'll move this to a new thread since it's not related to Windows Defender.

[gregtheis]

Thank you soooo much for the detailed instructions and confirmation of the problems. I started the process and have access to the music now but still have glitches . I will do the individual folders as you suggest tomorrow. Should I also delete the old vesrion 24 or is it OK to keep both until I confirm the system is stable?

[JimH]

Keep both until you're happy with MC25.

[gregtheis]

Thanks Jim,
After following the thread on the Windows Defender and making the changes the system was able to open and I could see and play the music files but then it glitched and then hung up. You say this is not a Windows Defender issue but the Windows update coincided with the problem. I'm confused as to what is going on and I'm not a computer wizard so I'm trying to understand the cause and solution to the problem. I've been a loyal happy JRiver music lover for many years without incident. I just want a simple fix and listen to my music again.
Greg

[stanzani]

In the 'security at a glance' page of Windows secuiry I am not enable to click The 'settings' icon in the bottom left ... what could the problem be? thanks much

[eljr]

And I thought I was radical doing a clean install each year   

Thank you for taking the time to write this.

what is a clean install?

[Awesome Donkey]

Reformatting and reinstalling Windows refers to a clean install. I do this every 6 months with each major Windows 10 update.

[stanzani]

I cannot find the 'add exclusion' button in the menu. OK, this is more a windows 10 problem: did anybody else experienced this?

thanks

[Awesome Donkey]

Well, the tutorial is for Windows 10, yes. If you're using Windows 7 or 8.1 the instructions would be different but I currently don't have any Windows 7 or 8.1 installs/VMs handy to check the steps.

You might give this tool a try, it should make adding exclusions much, MUCH easier as you can add multiple files/folders at the same time: https://www.sordum.org/10636/defender-injector-v1-1/

[JimH]

Split Experiencing lags and slowness

[d8lock]

Did Windows 10 add something new to mess with MC?  I noticed an insane amount of skipping today during playback.  It had been working flawlessly. 

[MagerClab]

Did Windows 10 add something new to mess with MC?  I noticed an insane amount of skipping today during playback.  It had been working flawlessly.

Do you have the Win10 2004 slow ring insider preview and KB 4534170 installed?

I noticed also extreme lags and skipping WITH  KB 4534170. Uninstalling KB 4534170 brought back the previous (working without glitches) status for me...

[doofone]

This doesn't have to do with Windows Defender per se ... I also use Malware Bytes ... this morning I got a warning that gogo.exe is determined to be malware ... gogo.exe is apparently used by JRiver in the MP-3 encoding process (the only reference I could find in the JRiver WIKI) ... I did not quarantine it as I suspect it is something I would want to keep ... it's not clear to me just how important it is to JRiver functionality though ... does anybody have any info on this?  I will repeat that this came from Malware Bytes not Windows Defender ...

[JimH]

Report it as a false positive to Malwarebytes.

[xen-uno]

Tolerate-Hate relationship with Defender .. disable the autoscan part via Task Scheduler and it keeps re-enabling itself. Need non-cloud version of something .. not even sure Kaspersky has that available now. Hio Jim long time ..

[JimH]

Hi Steve.

[Blu99Zoomer]

I am using a windows 10 computer to play a local public radio station's archived shows.  I am using JRiver MC26 26.0.107.  I have been using JRiver since 17 came out, moving to the newest version each year.  I have had this problem many times over the years.  Never a problem playing music on the computer itself.  This recurring problem seems to go away for a while and then returns.  I am not a computer literate person.  It's a struggle to problem solve this.  Otherwise JRiver has worked without problem playing the music library that I have recorded. 
For several weeks I have been unable to play a show completely through without the music stopping after around 30 minutes.  I tried doing the suggested changes in the Windows Security area adding folder exclusions.  I rebooted JRiver and also rebooted the computer.  All of this changed nothing and music still stops after around 20-30 minutes.  I closed JRiver and went to the radio's website, clicked the show I wanted to listen to and it just played.  I will add that the website has a different player than the one I see going through JRiver as well.(Do I need to change something in the Tree?) Today I tried changing from Chromium to Internet Explorer as the default web browser.  I turned off Windows Defender.  Nothing works.  Ideas suggestions needed.  Thanks.

Best Regards.
Blu

[Blu99Zoomer]

So just an update.  I have been able to play a full three hour rewind show by checking all the boxes on the streaming pop up of MC and in the record section adding 180 minutes to the record time.  I am at around an hour and a half today, which is day two using the recording a stream option to play a stream, and the music is still playing.  Is this a work around?  I think so.  But I am thankful for the music any way I get it.

Best Regards,

Blu

[vbphil]

It never fails when trying to follow Windows 10 configuration ideas that it doesn't work. When I try to add an exclusion everything appears to go well but I don't end up with a list of exclusions on the settings page like every example I've seen demonstrates. So, it looks like nothing is getting excluded. There's no error messages, or system alerts. I do get the elevated permissions dialog and I have Administrator privileges.

Any ideas why Add an Exclusion might not be working for me?

Here's my Windows  version:

Edition   Windows 10 Pro
Version   20H2
Installed on   ‎8/‎2/‎20
OS build   19042.685
Experience   Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.551.0

[Hiroshi]

It never fails when trying to follow Windows 10 configuration ideas that it doesn't work. When I try to add an exclusion everything appears to go well but I don't end up with a list of exclusions on the settings page like every example I've seen demonstrates. So, it looks like nothing is getting excluded. There's no error messages, or system alerts. I do get the elevated permissions dialog and I have Administrator privileges.

Any ideas why Add an Exclusion might not be working for me?

Here's my Windows  version:

Edition   Windows 10 Pro
Version   20H2
Installed on   ‎8/‎2/‎20
OS build   19042.685
Experience   Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.551.0

I am also facing same problem and MC27 stops it's playback after a while(1~10 sec).
Edition   Windows 10 Home
Version   20H2
Installed on   ‎2020/‎12/‎29
OS build   19042.685
Experience   Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.551.0

I tried add and exclusion but does not work. Please help.

[Awesome Donkey]

If it doesn't work that way, you might try an app like Defender Injector to make the needed exceptions.

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/defender_injector.html

[Hiroshi]

Thank you for this information!
MC did not work for a few week, but today it's working after updating the windows.
I will test it for a while, and yet if still problem I will try defender injector.

BR

[Hiroshi]

Thank you for this information!
MC did not work for a few week, but today it's working after updating the windows.
I will test it for a while, and yet if still problem I will try defender injector.

BR

After a while the problem happended again, but looks it is solved when upgrading to latest 27.0.57 from 27.0.43 stable version.

[ducatirider]

2 things that really helped me after i wiped and reinstalled windows was to defrag your hard drive and split your files into subfolders.  I made 1 for each letter of the alphabet and 1 for numbers such as 2pac, 10cc etc.  it worked much better after i did that.

[newsposter]

I whipped up this .reg file to add MC-specific items as exclusions for Windows Defender.  The C: and L: drive paths shown are specific to my machine and layout.  They would need to be changed or normalized for other users. In spite of the dword = 0, the entries seem to be working just fine, the dword doesn't seem to indicate anything, but researching it anyway.

PowerShell has a load of in-built functions to manipulate Windows Defender.  If someone wants to add an advanced MC configuration menu item to push changes to Defender, these will do it.  The three most applicable functions are Add-MpPreference, Set-MpPreference, and Remove-MpPreference.

But using a pre-set registry file is probably good-enough for most people.

/begin example
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Exclusions\Paths]
"L:\\Libraries\\Music\\"=dword:00000000
"C:\\Program Files\\J River"=dword:00000000
"C:\\Users\\ckkli\\AppData\\Roaming\\J River"=dword:00000000
"L:\\Libraries\\Pictures\\IncomingCoverArt"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Exclusions\Processes]
"C:\\Program Files\\J River\\*"=dword:00000000
//fin



File and folder exclusions are stored in this registry key:

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Exclusions\Paths

File type exclusions are stored in this registry key:

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Exclusions\Extensions

Process exclusions are stored in this registry key:

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Exclusions\Processes

[Hiroshi]

I tried a clean Windows re-install, but could not fix it.  However by coincidence, I found that my Bluetooth Keyboard was causing the problem. When I switch off my keyboard, playback does not stop, so initially I doubted that my keyboard was causing the problem.
Recently strange enough, I discovered that with latest MC27 27.0.85, this problem is gone.
So maybe MC27 had a bug from some point.

[macdonjh]

I am new to MC for Windows, so I'm catching up...  Thanks to JimH, doof, terrym, Awesome Donkey, RodrickGI and others who are so helpful.

I've read several times is different threads media files shouldn't be scanned.  I understand not scanning them in real time, or even automatically.  However, with all the downloading (rather than ripping from CDs) people are doing, should media files be scanned once on Import or after adding to your media folder but before Import)?

[JimH]

Not during import.

I would not even advise scanning media files.  I've never known of a virus that was embedded in a media file.

[syndromeofadown]

I've never known of a virus that was embedded in a media file.

I have had wma files flagged by AV software. Long ago when I briefly looked into it, I read something along the lines of wma/wmv instructing certain software (windows media player) to install a required codec. This codec could be replaced by a virus. Maybe this was a thing in 2002. I can't imagine anything other than windows media player being affected by it. Even in this situation the file itself isn't a virus, just a link to the possibility of one. I had a very small amount wma files, I deleted most and replaced the rest with an alternate format to stop the annoyance.

[Awesome Donkey]

AV-TEST, one of the top third-party companies that does extensive testing of antivirus apps, has confirmed that Windows Defender is one of the best antiviruses out there. It's still so strange to be reading and saying that, considering that a few years ago Windows Defender was practically a joke and here we are with it taking top scores. This is why I don't personally suggest to people to purchase and/or install antivirus apps anymore and just use Windows Defender, there's no reason to unless you like spending money and you're visiting some pretty shady sites, and even then I'd recommend setting up and using a virtual machine for that.

https://www.neowin.net/news/av-test-confirms-windows-defender-is-amongst-the-very-finest-antiviruses-you-get-in-2021/

[macdonjh]

I started having troubles with MC28 on one of the three computers I have.  As suggested by JimH, I started working on applying the recommendations in this thread, but I can't find where, with my version of Windows 10, to add exclusions to my installation of Windows Defender.

Would somebody post an updated "tree" to point me where I can add exclusions?  When I open the Start Menu and find Windows Security, I get a pop up similar to the screen shot provided by Awesome Donkey in his first post.  But when I click on the Settings "sprocket" in the lower left corner of that pop-up, I get this:


I have not yet, no matter how many places I click, found the place where I can manage exclusions.

[JimH]

Did you try Google?  Or Microsoft?

Search apps for Defender.

[Awesome Donkey]

On the left side of that window under the back arrow icon is that vertical row of icons (usually there's labels but if the window is small you won't see the labels). Click the shield icon and you should be able to from that section > Virus & threat protection settings > Manage settings > then when that page loads Exclusions on the bottom.

[macdonjh]

On the left side of that window under the back arrow icon is that vertical row of icons (usually there's labels but if the window is small you won't see the labels). Click the shield icon and you should be able to from that section > Virus & threat protection settings > Manage settings > then when that page loads Exclusions on the bottom.

I did find it.  Start Menu -> Windows Security (pop up window opens) -> Virus & threat Protection (from the menu bar on the left side) -> Virus & threat protection settings, click Manage settings -> Exclusions, click Add or remove exclusions

Sorry for wasting everyone's time with this, I completely missed it when I was looking earlier.

For my first attempt to get things working again, I took RD James' recommendations in Reply #22 and added these exclusions: "C:\Program Files\J River\" and "%APPDATA%\J River\"

More in a bit...

EDIT: adding the exclusions above (configured as File/ Folder exclusions, not Process exclusions) did not solve my troubles.  I've continued posting in the thread I started, rather than continuing to hijack this thread.

[tkolsto]

delete

[rec head]

I did find it.  Start Menu -> Windows Security (pop up window opens) -> Virus & threat Protection (from the menu bar on the left side) -> Virus & threat protection settings, click Manage settings -> Exclusions, click Add or remove exclusions

This should be added to the first post.


After going through the exclusions on both the server and client which I haven't done since MC24 and not having any luck I turned off sharing and turned it back on. Windows opened a security popup about MC29. I allowed it and everything is back to working.

[Steviewunda]

Hi - I've been able to add some mapped drives on my NAS as folder exceptions (M:\ (Movies) and T:\ (TV Shows) ) but when I try to add an exception for my Music mapped drive (Y:\) I get a spinning timer icon for a while, then nothing is added to the exceptions list.
Any suggestions?

[Steviewunda]

Disregard please - it seems to be working ok now

[alfredmjNZ]

I am using Windows 11 with all the current patches applied.  I decided to upgrade to MC32 to try and resolve an issue with MC31 and Sony Wireless headphones.  The MC32 download was immediately flagged as "bad code" by Windows Defender and installing resulted in a big blue banner stating MC32 installer was not allowed.  After multiple attempts to customise the firewall and update Windows defender (should have read all the posts first) I was still stuck.  It transpires you need to click "More Details" read to the bottom and select "Run anyway". The "Run anyway" option only appears in the details tab. Ignoring AV software dire warnings is not for the faint hearted.