VLC and Windows Defender

Off-Topic
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I use VLC as my default audio and video player on my Windows PC.
For some time now, I've noticed that the time from double-clicking a media file to launching and playing takes up to an incredible 15 seconds, even when using PCI-e SSDs exclusively.

I wanted to get to the bottom of the cause. I initially discovered that this delay only occurs the first time after a full Windows restart. Even if VLC isn't active and has already been launched once before, it still plays immediately.

The suspicion, that VLC has to spend a lot of time initializing codecs, plugins, etc. the first time it's launched in a Windows session, turned out not to be the cause.

I was once again able to identify the virus protection (Windows Defender) as the culprit, which scans VLC thoroughly the first time after a Windows-restart. I've already identified the Defender as the culprit in the past for the massive delays when loading files in Mp3tag.

An exception in Defender for the vlc.exe process immediately eliminated the startup delay. Of course, it's questionable whether you should do this, because it would leave a malware-vlc.exe undetected.

If it bothers you that VLC takes 15 seconds for the first playback, you could instead put a batch file that starts and immediately shuts down VLC in automatic-windows-startup, if you don't want VLC running permanently.

Has anyone had similar experiences with other players and other antivirus software?

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If Windows Defender doesn't allow you to specify a file hash for an exclusion, that wouldn't be my first approach either.

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My anti-virus software (from a third party company), does not have this problem.
The caveat: This software is not free and not already included in the Windows OS.
I suggest to check if alternative anti-virus software might be a solution.

This could also solve

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No, the defender does not have this hash-exception-feature.

I used third party antivirus-software for decades. I switched to the defender because it became better in finding malware over the years and it is less problematic to have a solution from one hand.

I investigated this behavior out of curiosity rather than because I'm genuinely suffering from it. I wrote this post because maybe others have already encountered this strange behavior.

4

Thank you for exploring this. I also use VLC, and noticed the same--1st time delay, from then on okay. My delay isn't quite so bad, maybe 4-5 seconds, but I have a brand new blazing fast laptop.

I have auto-update on VLC turned off. So I'm not very worried about a malware update.