Configure monitoring for incoming and outgoing file and program activity

This policy setting allows you to configure monitoring for incoming and outgoing files, without having to turn off monitoring entirely. It is recommended for use on servers where there is a lot of incoming and outgoing file activity but for performance reasons need to have scanning disabled for a particular scan direction. The appropriate configuration should be evaluated based on the server role.

Note that this configuration is only honored for NTFS volumes. For any other file system type, full monitoring of file and program activity will be present on those volumes.

The options for this setting are mutually exclusive:
0 = Scan incoming and outgoing files (default)
1 = Scan incoming files only
2 = Scan outgoing files only

Any other value, or if the value does not exist, resolves to the default (0).

If you enable this setting, the specified type of monitoring will be enabled.

If you disable or do not configure this setting, monitoring for incoming and outgoing files will be enabled.

Configure monitoring for incoming and outgoing file and program activity

0. bi-directional (full on-access)
   

   Registry Hive	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
   Registry Path	Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Real-Time Protection
   Value Name	RealtimeScanDirection
   Value Type	REG_DWORD
   Value	0

1. scan only incoming (disable on-open)
   

   Registry Hive	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
   Registry Path	Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Real-Time Protection
   Value Name	RealtimeScanDirection
   Value Type	REG_DWORD
   Value	1

2. scan only outgoing (disable on-close)
   

   Registry Hive	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
   Registry Path	Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Real-Time Protection
   Value Name	RealtimeScanDirection
   Value Type	REG_DWORD
   Value	2