Microsoft Defender & Schrodinger's Virus

I really like Microsoft Defender, it's part of the Microsoft 365 subscription - you get all the office apps on your device and 1TB of storage as well. It's $8.00 a month and that's not bad at all.

BUT, I had recently downloaded a RAR file and while Windows Security was doing the scan, it scanned it and flagged it as a virus inside it. Well before I saw that, I had deleted the RAR thinking "I don't think this is on the level".

This broke Windows Security completely. It wanted me to take action on the item that was literally no longer there. It did not have a chance to install, as I never opened the RAR and of course did NOT run the EXE file inside it.

I tried resetting and that did nothing to make it go away with the item it had found. Interesting thing is, I did a scan again, and it found nothing, but the old threat was still flagged and wanting my attention. So it was "Schrodinger's Virus", at the same time, there and not there.

I had to jump to a forum where someone else had had this happen with a different EXE in a ZIP. The only way to make it go away and shut up is to "allow on this system". Well, this leaves you open if you manage to download it from some other place and mess up and install it.

Yes I full on knew better than to download the RAR from some guys blog, but I did. It is something I tell people never to do. It was supposed to be a text file telling you how to cheat on a game. That it was in a RAR should have told me right off the bat that it was NOT OK to open. I totally blanked out on this one.