Microsoft Defender on Windows Server 2016/2019 suddenly eating up storage (multiple files created)? Try this workaround

Microsoft’s anti-malware tool, Windows Defender, came out in 2006 and is now known as Microsoft Defender Antivirus.

It is a component of the Windows operating systems including the Microsoft Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, and Windows Server 2019.

However, users of the Windows Server 2016 and 2019 have been facing an issue with the antivirus lately.

As per recent reports, Microsoft Defender Antivirus is eating up storage by creating multiple files.

Basically, the antivirus creates a lot files as soon as the Real-time Protection feature is switched on.

While this issue is affecting users of the Windows Server 2016 and 2019, it is unclear whether or not it is present on other Windows editions as well.

This issue is causing a lot of inconvenience to users as a lot of storage is getting occupied because of it.

A user has said that the problem might occur in case more than one antivirus tools are installed on the system. In that case, disabling Windows Defender fixes the said issue.

On the other hand, a Windows Defender Engineer has said that this is a known issue which will be fixed soon.

Affected users might not have to face this problem for long as an update with the said fix is expected to be out by this Thursday i.e., May 6.

We hope Microsoft releases the fix on the said date as users are running out of storage for no particular reason.

That said, we will keep tracking this for further development and will provide more details once new information becomes available.

In the meantime, you can check out our dedicated Microsoft section as there are more such stories over there.

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