Windows Defender Shortcuts

These may help you to construct a suitable command for your shortcut:

Use the command line to manage Windows Defender Antivirus | Microsoft Docs
How to use Windows Defender with Command Prompt on Windows 10 | Windows Central

If you want to scan the Downloads folder, you'll use the command:
mpcmdrun -scan -scantype 3 -File C:\Users\{yourname}\Downloads

Detailed help

You can get detailed information about these commands and other advanced Windows Defender command-line operations with the command:
mpcmdrun -?

from
How to get more from Windows Defender by using its command-line tool - TechRepublic

The shortcut will need to invoke a command with parameters to run Defender.

Good luck with your quest.
I guess if you were lucky someone might take the time to construct one for you...

You can do this with a shortcut by specifying the full path to mpcmdrun. Here is one I whipped up. Download it, unzip it and place on your Desktop. The shortcut is called Scan C with Windows Defender.

Double click on it and it will start Windows Defender and scan the C: drive.

Right click on it and select Properties to see what it does.

WinDef-C.zip

Not working. The attached file ends up being MpCmdRun.exe instead of a lin called Scan C with Windows Defender as it was when I zipped it. Very weird.

kitpzyxmsir said:

Is there a way to create a custom shortcut to run a C:\ scan?

Hello,

You could create a shortcut using the command below for a quick scan.

"%ProgramFiles%\Windows Defender\MpCmdRun.exe" -Scan -ScanType 1

How to Scan with Windows Defender in Windows 10 | Tutorials

Shawn, he wants it to scan just the C: drive. Will it do that? I haven't tried it yet.

(running it now to see what happens)

Edit: I don't see the advantage of having a link to do this rather then opening This PC or File Explorer, right click on C: and select Scan with Windows Defender.

When it finishes, if you are not watching, the Command Prompt window just closes and you have no idea what happened.

Hey Rich,

A "Quick scan" won't scan the whole C: drive, but it does scan the Windows system folders.