

Leave this alone unless you're a high-level user. You can pick and choose the files and places you want to scan. It's slow, and can take a long time, but is more likely to find a bit of malware hiding in an unexpected place. This scan checks everything on your hard drive. It's not as thorough as a full scan but is much faster. This checks the areas that malware is most likely to reside. This appears to be a glitch in the program, so don't worry about it.)

(Also note that the phrase "Scan options" is only partially visible. There's also a Scan now button, to manually kick off a scan, and below that, the details of my last scan, including what kind it was. Windows Defender helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software. Underneath, the check marks tell us that "Real-time protection" is on, meaning that Defender is continuously running and that my virus definitions are "Up to date." That means Defender has the latest descriptions of viruses loaded and should be able to recognize the latest threats to the computer. In this case, the text tells us that we need to run a scan. Notice that it ways "PC status: Potentially unprotected" at the top, in case you missed all the other warnings. A yellow bar at the top computer monitor here, along with the exclamation point, is Microsoft's not-too-subtle way of telling you that you need to take some action. Avira Free Antivirus for Windows continues to score highly on AV-TEST's stringent testing program, quashing 99.7 of tested threats, and it generally doesn't put too big a burden on your hardware. When Windows Defender opens, you'll see this screen.
