Windows Defender Exclusions for Developers

Configure Windows Defender to stop scanning build output, compiler processes, and IDE caches — the main cause of slow builds and IntelliSense lag on Windows.

Step 1 — Ask for project folders

Before applying, ask the user:

"What are the paths to your project/source folders? (e.g. D:\source, D:\projects)"

Skip folders that live on a Dev Drive. A ReFS Dev Drive already gets Microsoft Defender performance mode (async scanning), which is faster than nothing and still scans the files. A path exclusion blocks scanning altogether and gains almost nothing on top. Check with Get-Volume | Where-Object FileSystemType -eq 'ReFS' — see the windows-dev-drive skill. Tool paths on C: (below) are still worth excluding.

Step 2 — Run the script

Requires admin PowerShell. Interactive (prompts for folders):