Antivirus troublemaking

(Windows 10 troubleshooting)

McAfee antivirus came with my laptop and it finally expired after two long years of making everything slow. I was excited to finally uninstall it and try something different. Then I turned on Windows Defender & started to have trouble with other apps.

I wasn’t able to find these fixes through Googling, so I’m posting them here for other people — don’t throw your laptop out the window yet! It’s probably the antivirus! I’ll post more fixes as I come across them.

Note: I haven’t upgraded to Windows 11. I have a Lenovo Yoga tablet/PC & want to keep the tablet functionality.

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BenMAP

If you’re getting errors like: “Access to the path is denied” or “Could not find file” in the My BenMAP-CE Files folder try this instead of modifying permissions.

1. Go to Windows Security > Virus & threat protection > Virus & threat protection settings > Controlled folder access > Allow an app through Controlled folder access.
2. Click Add an allowed app.
3. Select BenMAP.exe.

H/t MakeUseOf suggestion #4.

Freedom blocker

I was getting DNS errors and having trouble connecting to websites that weren’t on my block list. To fix, add an exclusion for the Freedom programs folder. Follow the steps from Freedom & then Windows Defender:

1. Freedom documentation: https://support.freedom.to/en/articles/4529917-freedom-troubleshooting-for-windows
2. Microsoft documentation: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/add-an-exclusion-to-windows-security-811816c0-4dfd-af4a-47e4-c301afe13b26