Stop me from wasting time on defender offline

Hi. Specs are asus core i7 premium laptop only around 10 years old. Was win7 pro. Upgraded to win 10 home about a year and and half ago. My mission was to eventually eliminate any issues left over after the original upgrade. And probably I chased some ghosts and caused some issues myself. I wanted to learn win 10 better and this was one way. So the build is 20H2 19042.867.

Today’s gremlin is that MDO won’t scan and the log file indicates it can’t find the signatures. If I do an in place upgrade back to .631 and run one before the defender platform is updated it has worked. Now I am networking with WiFi only. So I guess that means it has to find the signatures on the host OS, because winRE does not support WiFi as installed, correct?
The question is can anyone say for sure that with a recent defender platform like version 4.18.2102.3, which I have now, MDO scans do work without a wired Ethernet to grab the sigs from the net? Should be simple to test if someone else is on 20H2 and curious.

I’ve tried everything anyway. I will be shocked if someone contradicts my theory.

Hello Jimbo93 and welcome to TF ,
This may be worth a try: How to Reset Windows Security App in Windows 10

Seems like a long shot. But I can’t say I tried it. Thank you. Are you using a W10 20H2 machine?

Jimbo93 said:

Seems like a long shot. But I can’t say I tried it. Thank you. Are you using a W10 20H2 machine?

No, but I'm using 2004 which is one major version behind because a feature of Windows 10 2004 I use was broken by 20H2. Just as soon as M$$$$ fixes the problem, I will upgrade to 2xHy .

WD works for majority of us, so there must be something wrong with your configuration.

Next weapon of choice would be: Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade unless someone has a better suggestion.

When you say WD works for the majority of us, does that really mean that the offline scan works without a wired Ethernet. And then we still have to look at platform version because I have confirmed that mine works with .631 and no updates to security platform. And of course we are on the same page as to what the offline scan is, yes? Thanks

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Mine also works with .867 build and a mpcmdrun -resetplatform and some luck. Again WiFi no wired network. And the symptoms of not working are boots to blue screen, progress bar but scan doesn’t start, then restart back to os.

Jimbo93 said:

When you say WD works for the majority of us, does that really mean that the offline scan works without a wired Ethernet. And then we still have to look at platform version because I have confirmed that mine works with .631 and no updates to security platform. And of course we are on the same page as to what the offline scan is, yes? Thanks

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Mine also works with .867 build and a mpcmdrun -resetplatform and some luck. Again WiFi no wired network. And the symptoms of not working are boots to blue screen, progress bar but scan doesn’t start, then restart back to os.

I have 19041.867 Windows 10 Home 2004 installed and use only WiFi.
Give me some test steps to run to duplicate what you're seeing please.

Jimbo93 said:

The reason the platform update breaks it is because MS changed the location of defender files and didn’t fix the offline scanner as required. That’s what my research is revealing.
So resetting the security app doesn’t solve this issue just checked.

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Ok. In security app under virus first do a manual update, may not be an update but try. Then just launch the offline scan. If it works, I.e. you see a scan window and file count being scanned, I would be interested in what is the anti malware platform version on yours, also called antimalware client version. I’m not going ask you to describe the log mssswrapper. Basically my log shows it can’t open the registry to get the signatures location. And network update fails as well.

My platform version/client version is 4.18.2102.3

Damn stupid M$$$ strikes again M$$$ fan boys stay away please.

I started following this
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...0-ff533f183d6c

then without warning, my PC rebooted before I could exit my apps and open files.

The offline scan was going along, it got to 93%, then the PC rebooted and took me back to the login screen - so I assume it finished successfully First time I've ever done this offline scan nonsense

Oh damn. Sorry. Well the benefits of such a scan would only be apparent when you needed it. I realize I’m being critical of a lesser used tool.

Jimbo93 said:

Oh damn. Sorry. Well the benefits of such a scan would only be apparent when you needed it. I realize I’m being critical of a lesser used tool.

Not your fault - damn Ma$$$ needs a better user interface

How do I look at my log and platform version?