Weird issue copying files with Windows Defender  

Hello.

I am posting this thread here because it's not related to security at all.
I formatted a somewhat old Toshiba Satellite laptop yesterday (2GB RAM, w10 x86 pro 17134.376). Everything running smooth and such. But then I went to put user's personal files back (44GB copied to external hd). Two minutes or so after starting copying (using latest Total Commander), the system BSOD'ed with some sort of "critital process failed" and then the hard disk was locked in place. I had to completely shut down and restart to make it accessible.

Then I rechecked S.M.A.R.T values and did a whole surface test. Everything was okay.
I thought, it must be a glitch then. I resumed the copying process. You know what: another crash.
Turned it off and on again (like they said on IT Crowd series ). This time I saw estimated time for completion was about 5 and a half hours!!! and the copying speed was abysmal. I then disabled real-time protection. Time went down to just 25 minutes or minus.

I just installed AVAST and it did the copying process in under 22 minutes without any issues at all.

What do you think?

eLPuSHeR said:

I formatted a somewhat old Toshiba Satellite laptop yesterday (2GB RAM, w10 x86 pro 17134.376). Everything running smooth and such. But then I went to put user's personal files back (44GB copied to external hd). Two minutes or so after starting copying (using latest Total Commander), the system BSOD'ed with some sort of "critital process failed" and then the hard disk was locked in place. I had to completely shut down and restart to make it accessible. ...

...What do you think?

I think Defender's Controlled Folder Access may be playing a part. By default it is turned on in 17134, and the user's folders are included in the folders that it protects. I would try signing in as the user concerned then turn off controlled folder access before copying the user files back. If all is well after copying, then it should be safe to turn controlled folder access back on.

Enable or Disable Controlled Folder Access in Windows 10 | Windows 10 Tutorials

Good day.

Yes I think it may be just that (Controlled Folder Access). But why not issuing some popup or something instead of just plain crashing?. So far, this is the last straw for me and Windows Defender for now. I am quite dissatisfied with Windows Defender overall experience. I still like it but there is a lot of room to improve.

eLPuSHeR said:

Yes I think it may be just that (Controlled Folder Access). But why not issuing some popup or something instead of just plain crashing?

When I've had controlled folder access get in my way in the past it normally just fails to make the copy/save and sometimes has a notification to tell you so. It may be that your 'Total Commander' has an incompatibility that's causing the crash when blocked - it doesn't know how to handle this particular error condition?

Good day.

It may well could be, but I have reverted back to WD and so far, everything's running fine. It's an old laptop so I would not be surprised if something hardware-related might be starting to fail (or it will do eventually).