Whitelist heRO for Windows Defender
Information
To start with, Windows Defender is a built-in Antivirus software included in every copy of Windows since Windows 7. It’s since received numerous improvements over the years and now works extremely well. However, it will target our new patcher, so we need to tell Defender to not scan our new heRO folder, otherwise, we run the risk of Defender deleting our Patcher or Client.
Thor Patcher is our new Patcher. We’ve since moved on from Neoncube, as Thor enables us to patch any location in the heRO folder, the GRFs, the Client .exe, the Patcher .exe and .conf files, and much more. It’s a much more powerful version of Neoncube. Unfortunately, due to how Thor Patcher works (as it was originally coded in the early 2000’s), Windows Defender and many other antivirus software do not play nicely with it, since it can patch itself, and many of its behaviours are reminiscent of what an actual virus/malware is.
If you’re using Windows Defender, we’ve included the following steps for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Overall, the method is similar but slightly different between the two Operating Systems. If you’re using another Antivirus, we suggest googling “xxx antivirus whitelist folder”. Basically, whitelisting instructs Windows Defender to not touch, scan, or care about what is in this folder. This will allow the Patcher and Client .exe’s to run normally without the fear of deletion from Defender.
How to Whitelist for Windows Defender
1. Click the ‘Start Button’
2. Search for ‘Settings’
3. Click ‘Settings’
4. Once Settings opens up, in the top left you will see a search box called ‘Find a Setting’. Click this and search for “virus”. In the results, click on ‘Virus & threat protection’
5. This will open up an app called ‘Windows Security’. This is where your Windows Defender settings lives. Underneath ‘Virus & threat protection settings’, click ‘Manage Settings’.
6. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, to ‘Exclusions’ and click ‘Add or Remove exclusions’
7. Click on ‘Add an exclusion’, choose folder, and select your new heRO folder.
