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Full Version: How to stop Bitdefender scanning the pCloud drive at Windows start-up
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In a recent update to the Bitdefender Antivirus Free (and likely the Security version also), it automatically starts a scan on Windows start-up, which includes cloud drives such as pCloud.  This is not usually an issue with free services that are typically limited to a few GB, but with paid services such as the 2TB pCloud plan, this can cause intensive Internet usage, particularly with mobile broadband plans.  

From my own testing, excluding the P:\ path does not work, likely due to exclusions only working with internal hard disks and SSDs:
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As pCloud presents itself as a removable drive to Windows, a workaround is to set BitDefender to exclude flash drives:

On the BitDefender main screen, click 'Protection' on the left (1), then under Antivirus, click "Open" (2):
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Click 'Settings' at the top (3), then for "Scan flash drives" change the drop-down to Disabled (4):
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Note: If there are multiple Windows user accounts, perform these steps on each user account.  

If you share or use flash drives from other people, you can set the drop-down to "Ask every time" as a compromise.  This will at least give the option to scan flash drives upon plugging in, but with a small side effect of it asking to scan the pCloud at Windows Start-up.  However, this is still better than it automatically scanning, which can be easily overlooked with a metered Internet connection.