What’s up with Windows Defender Offline?

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Got an interesting message from SG: I downloaded the latest defender offline for both 32 and 64 bit systems. Neither one works – they say that the def
[See the full post at: What’s up with Windows Defender Offline?]

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Based on the number of comments here, I think most readers don’t even know what is Windows Defender Offline. I am one of them

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AHA! Windows Defender Offline is an old tool that runs while Windows is not running. You plug a WDO DVD or USB into your computer, boot from it, and WDO finds bad stuff that might not be accessible when Windows is running.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/what-is-windows-defender-offline

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This has happened to me too. Both an older copy and a freshly downloaded copy both failed to work properly with the same error.
They boot to WDO which states that the definitions are out of date and must be downloaded. When I try to get the updates, they are downloaded and the installer churns for awhile before giving me this helpful error:

X80070070 This copy of this app has expired. The new copy has expired already? Weird!

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Not to be confused with the Microsoft Safety Scanner, which is a download which runs the full scans of Windows Defender, but does not update and does not install any active defenses. Also, MSERT as this is called, does not remove all the issues it may find. I use it only as a third-line check for malware.

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Same problem here on 5/28. Definitions out of date, and can’t be updated while the program is running from a CD/DVD. I don’t know whether this tool was supposed to work on Windows 10 machines (why wouldn’t it?), but it was very useful, and I would be disappointed if Microsoft has abandoned it.

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I tried to use the URL from page 787 of Windows 10 All-in-One for Dummies to download a copy of Windows Defender Offline as suggested but the URL redirected to http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/products/windows?os=windows-10, which didn’t have any options I could find for getting the app onto a USB drive or anywhere else for that matter. The associated documentation for Windows Defender Offline seems to suggest running it while the machine is on and after receiving a notice that something was found by Defender that should be checked out by Defender Offline. That’s not too helpful if the machine won’t boot to start with or if you are normally running another anti-virus program and just want an offline/non-Windows check using a bootable USB drive.

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You can get a copy here

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17466/windows-defender-offline-help-protect-my-pc

But Microsoft is baking WDO into the Anniversary Update of Windows 10. When you have the Anniversary Update (build 1607), all you need to do is click Start > Settings > Update & security > Windows Defender and, under Windows Defender Offline (at the bottom), click Scan Offline. That’ll restart your computer, run WDO, then restart back in Windows.

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