Oh no! My database services just went dead. All the datastore files are corrupt!! ARRRGGHH I MUST HAVE A VIRUS!!

Is what I thought – but it turns out to be something more interesting. Something more mundane. This is the true uncensored story of what happened and what I did about it.

So you must have heard of something called an ‘ANTI-VIRUS’ software.

Funny thing; many anti-virii today force themselves into database files and database processes, and sometimes, as a result of this clearly intrusive cavity search, the relevant processes just give up and die.

Thankfully my new favourite antivirus of all time Windows Defender has the ability to accept a list of exceptions – programs to not slaughter, locations to not peep, etc – like you see from the shots below.

Does this really reduce the stability/security of the system? I doubt it as these are known processes and known locations – known only to you – that are excluded. Naturally you’ll have a firewall and other security measures in place so selectively relaxing security in the interest of data integrity is not a bad idea.

On the flip side – you may go “EEEK! I JUST LOST MY DATA!” 😉