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Add or Edit performance exclusion

This dialog window excludes a specific path (file or directory) for this computer.

note

To choose an appropriate path, click ... in the Path field.

When entering manually, see more exclusion format examples below.

DIALOG_EXCLUDE_PATH

You can use wildcards to exclude a group of files. A question mark (?) represents a single character, whereas an asterisk (*) represents a string of zero or more characters.

example
  • If you want to exclude all files and subfolders in a folder, type the path to the folder and use the mask *
  • If you want to exclude doc files only, use the mask *.doc
  • If the name of an executable file has a certain number of characters (with varying characters) and you only know the first one (for example, "D”), use the following format:
    D????.exe (question marks replace the missing/unknown characters)

Examples:

  • C:\Tools\* – The path must end with the backslash (\) and asterisk (*) to indicate that it is a folder and all folder content (files and subfolders) will be excluded.
  • C:\Tools\*.* – Same behavior as C:\Tools\*
  • C:\Tools – Tools folder will not be excluded. From the scanner perspective, Tools can also be a file name.
  • C:\Tools\*.dat – This will exclude .dat files in the Tools folder.
  • C:\Tools\sg.dat – This will exclude this particular file located in the exact path.

example

You can use system variables like %PROGRAMFILES% to define scan exclusions.

  • To exclude the Program Files folder using this system variable, use the path %PROGRAMFILES%\* (remember to add backslash and asterisk at the end of path) when adding to exclusions.
  • To exclude all files and folders in a %PROGRAMFILES% subdirectory, use the path %PROGRAMFILES%\Excluded_Directory\*

hmtoggle_plus0 Expand list of supported system variables

important

Using wildcards in the middle of a path (for example C:\Tools\*\Data\file.dat) may work but is not officially supported for the performance exclusions. See the following Knowledgebase article for more information.

There are no restrictions to using wildcards in the middle of a path when using detection exclusions.

example

Order of exclusions:

  • There are no options to adjust the priority level of exclusions using the top/bottom buttons.
  • When the first applicable rule is matched by the scanner, the second applicable rule will not be evaluated.
  • The fewer the rules, the better the scanning performance.
  • Avoid creating concurrent rules.