Windows 10 Fall Creators Update to introduce Controlled folder access in Windows Defender

Along with Windows 10 Insiders Preview build 16232, Microsoft to introduce a new feature called 'Controlled folder access' in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. This will make it easier for you to protect valuable data from malicious apps and threats.

In this post, we are going to preview this new feature that's going to introduce in Windows Defender in the next major build of Windows 10.

When your system is connected to internet, it's not at all secure. Like the way we observed two major cyber attack in recent past, with two Ransomware's named WannaCry/WannaCrypt and Petya/NotPetya, it's always better to keep your system data protected from such malicious attacks.

Thus, the giant company was forced to think of a new feature to keep their users system and/or the data protected from Ransomwares and other malwares. With the insiders preview build 16232, they have introduced 'Controlled folder access', which is still under development. When this feature is enabled, will improve the protection done by Windows Defender Security Center.

To enable this feature, open the Windows Defender Security Center and navigate to it's settings page as shown in the below screenshot:

As shown in the below screenshot, from the settings page, navigate to the Virus & threat protection settings page where you will be able to control the folder access:

To protect your files and folders from unauthorized changes made by unfriendly applications, switch ON this feature. You will be able to control the protection of folders by clicking the 'Protected folders' link:

Controlled folder access monitors the changes that apps make to files in certain protected folders. If an app attempts to make a change to these files, and the app is blacklisted by the feature, you’ll get a notification about the attempt.

Windows system folders are by default protected but if you want to protect additional folders, you can do so by adding them one by one here in this screen:

Please note:

You can add additional folders to the list of protected folders, but you cannot alter the default list, which includes folders such as Documents, Pictures, Movies and Desktop.

Allowing apps can be useful if you’re finding a particular app that you know and trust is being blocked by the Controlled folder access feature. Click Allow an app through Controlled folder access and locate and add the app you want to allow.

You can also enter network shares and mapped drives, but environment variables and wildcards are not supported. Hope that the information shared above was easy to understand. Don't forget to check out the other new features that got introduced in Windows 10 Insiders Preview build 16232. If you are an insider in the fast ring, check it out and share your feedback to Microsoft.