Antivirus software can frequently be blamed for eating up computing resources and slowing down a computer. Most of the time that is the basis for arguments when we choose or recommend our favorite antivirus software (I recommend Avast.).
The problem of resource-hungry malware protection software is usually a result of the program itself or poor programming, but some of the time it can just be a problem of a poor configuration. That’s why it is always important to review the antivirus configuration if the defaults are not working for you. Microsoft offers a guide for improved configuration for Windows Server 2008, Server 2003, Windows 2000, XP, and Vista, making it relevant information for home users and IT professionals.
The guide includes folders and files to exclude from critical Windows systems so that your security software does not spend a lot of time scanning frequently accessed files nor potentially detect a critical file as a false positive. The reason Microsoft published this guide was because performance issues can occur because of file locking.
You can check out the Microsoft knowledge base article here to get optimal protection and optimal performance for your computer.