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Run antivirus software on the DPM server

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DPM is compatible with most popular antivirus software products. We recommend the following steps to avoid conflicts:

  1. Disable real-time monitoring - Disable real-time monitoring by the antivirus software for the following:

    • C:\Program Files<DPM Installation path>\XSD folder
    • C:\Program Files<DPM Installation path>\Temp folder
    • Drive letter of Modern Backup Storage volume
    • Disable real-time monitoring of MSDPM.exe, which is located in the folder Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\bin
    • Replica and transfer logs - To do this, disable real-time monitoring of dpmra.exe, which is located in the folder Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\bin. Real-time monitoring degrades performance because the antivirus software scans the replicas each time DPM synchronizes with the protected server and scans all affected files each time DPM applies changes to the replicas.
    • Administrator console - To avoid an impact on performance, disable real-time monitoring of the csc.exe process. The csc.exe process is the C# compiler, and real-time monitoring can degrade the performance because the antivirus software scans files that the csc.exe process emits when it generates XML messages. CSC.exe is located in the following paths:
      • \Windows\Microsoft.net\Framework\v2.0.50727\csc.exe
      • \Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\csc.exe
    • If you have installed MARS agent on the DPM server for online backup, we recommend that you exclude the following files and locations:
      • C:\Program Files\Microsoft Azure Recovery Services Agent\bin\cbengine.exe as a process
      • C:\Program Files\Microsoft Azure Recovery Services Agent\ folders
      • Scratch location (if you're not using the standard location)

  2. Disable real-time monitoring on the Protected Server - Disable the real-time monitoring of dpmra.exe, which is located in the folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\bin. Also disable real-time monitoring for C:\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM folder on the protected server.

  3. Configure anti-virus software to delete the infected files on protected servers and the DPM server - To prevent data corruption of replicas and recovery points, configure the antivirus software to delete infected files, rather than automatically cleaning or quarantining them. Automatic cleaning and quarantining might cause the antivirus software to modify files, making changes that DPM can't detect.

    You should run a manual synchronization with a consistency. Check the job each time the antivirus software deletes a file from the replica even if the replica is marked as inconsistent.

DPM installation folders

The default installation folders for DPM are as follows:

  • For DPM 2016 - C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2016\DPM
  • For DPM 2019 or later - C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center\DPM

You can also run the following command to find the install folder path:

Reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Setup"/s/f "InstallPath"

Next steps

Set up DPM logging