Windows Defender Real Time Protection Service slowing down Visual Studio etc.

Hi,

Thank you for posting on Microsoft Communities.

I will be glad to help you with the issue you have with the computer. I understand the frustration when things don't work the way it should.

Did you make any changes to the computer prior to the issue?

What is the anti-virus program on the computer?

The issue could occur if there is any third party conflicts on the computer.

I suggest you to place the computer in a Clean Boot and check if it helps.

To know how to place the computer in Clean Boot I suggest you to follow the below link.

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Note: Reset the computer back to Normal Mode once you are done with the troubleshooting by following the section "How to reset the computer to start normally after clean boot troubleshooting" from the same article.

Please reply with the required information and the results. I will be glad to help you further.

Hi Ruth,

As I have mentioned above this issue is not isolated to my individual computer. I have spun up brand new virtual machines in Azure where I was able to successfully replicate the problem. I have also reset my laptop and the issue persists. Also as indicated by the links I shared in my original post other people also seem to be running into this problem.

I don't have any other anti virus installed on my laptop.

Hi,

Thank you for coming back to us with details.

Since you are using Virtual Machine, The issue you posted would better suited in Microsoft TechNet forum, we have a dedicated team with advanced tools and permissions to help you with these type of issues. I suggest you to post the same query in Microsoft TechNet forum for further assistance with this issue.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/home?category=Windows10ITPro

If you need further assistance on Windows let us know, we will be glad to help you.

Hi thanks for your response however I don't think you have understood the question. The issue is present on laptops, desktops and virtual machines. Basically all machines using Windows 10 with Windows Defender Real Time Protection Service turned on.

The issue is NOT isolated to a single laptop, desktop or virtual machine.

   I have seen this issue with many different versions of visual studio, from 2012 to 2015. Newer verisons of studio are slower for just about everything, from changing projects and files to compiling. C# intellisense seems to be a particular problem for me until I turned it off. The issue is chronically bad enough that I had to revert to studio 2013 fro 2015 to get my work done.

 According to task manager, the bottleneck is disk, not memory or CPU and the process that is hogging the disk is the windows defender exe. I have been running a core i7 mobile gen 1 processor with 8 gigs of ram and a terabyte 7200 RPM laptop drive, but the system I bought to alleviate the problem (a core I7 gen2 desktop with 16 gigs of ram and a 7200 RPM drive) had the same issue.

  I tried moving my projects to a flash drive, but my code files don't seem to be part of the problem at all.

  Since the speed issue goes away when I turn off defender (until the next reboot) I can only assume that the drive issue is from defender trying to access signatures, and not from defender being charged with all the load time for visual studio DLLs.

Hi,

Have you tried adding VS executable or the entire folder to the exclusions list in Windows Defender settings? You can exclude a file, folder, or a file extension. Per Outlook I have no problems here, running Office 2010 in Windows x64. 

I find it interesting that you are asking if I 'Reached out' to Microsoft, since this forum is the suggested and only way that Microsoft provides to do that exact thing.

  I have been reporting the speed issue in the 4 or 5 usability studies I've been invited to participate in since windows 10 came out, but I haven't been to one since I discovered the issue was Windows defender. It always confused me and the other participants in the group studies that Microsoft was somehow unaware of the issue.

Sorry what I meant was that if you tried reaching out to them via Windows Insider or one of their Connect programs where they accept bugs related to their products. I am sure they aren't unaware of the issue but perhaps it isn't prioritized high enough which is a bit weird given their focus on making Visual Studio and .NET the ubiquitous developer platforms and tools.

So my main issue is with Visual Studio and an Outlook Add-In that I have developed. It is called TMO (TFS Meets Outlook) and it provides two way connectivity with TFS from within Outlook. What I have discovered is that Defender causes Outlook to load really slow if that add-in (or any managed add-in) is installed. TMO is right now in Beta and I would be really grateful if you could give it a spin and let me know how the Outlook loads for you once TMO is installed. I have noticed that adding Outlook.exe to the defender exception list or disabling the real time protection service makes the problem go away.

Anyway if you are able to try that out the URL is http://gotmo.co.uk (Still in the process of adding instruction videos so don't be surprised if you see funny cat videos when you click a few links on the site!)

Anyway if you are able to try that out the URL is https://gotmo.co.uk (Still in the process of adding instruction videos so don't be surprised if you see funny cat videos when you click a few links on the site!)