During weekend maintenance a systems administrator notices that the organization's Windows Server 2022 file server reaches nearly 100 percent disk I/O and CPU utilization every night around 01:30. A full Microsoft Defender Antivirus scan starts at 01:00, and a Veeam Backup & Replication job that writes to a local disk repository begins at 01:15. The backup job now routinely overruns its maintenance window and reports failures. Compliance requirements mandate keeping the nightly full scan in place, and the backup schedule cannot be moved. Which antivirus configuration change is MOST likely to let the backup finish successfully while still protecting the host?
Change the nightly task to a cloud-delivered quick scan instead of a full local scan.
Raise the antivirus scan priority to High so it completes before the backup starts.
Add folder and process exclusions in Microsoft Defender for all Veeam Backup & Replication executables and the disk-to-disk repository.
Schedule a PowerShell script to disable real-time protection for the duration of the backup job.
Adding targeted folder and process exclusions for the backup application removes the heaviest scanning load from the antivirus engine only for the data paths that cause contention. Microsoft, Veritas and Veeam all document that scanning backup repositories or backup-application binaries can severely reduce throughput or cause job failures, and they recommend excluding those paths or executables to restore performance without disabling protection entirely.
Disabling real-time protection during the job sacrifices continuous malware defense and is unnecessary once exclusions are in place. Replacing the full scan with a quick or cloud-delivered scan would violate the stated compliance requirement to keep the nightly full scan. Increasing scan priority makes the antivirus consume even more CPU and I/O, further starving the backup process. Therefore, defining specific exclusions for the Veeam executables and repository folders is the best host-hardening adjustment in this scenario.