Anybody using Windows Defender controlled folder access?

[davexnet]

I turned it on recently to see what would would pop up, it seems to disallow access to video, music, picture and documents
folders by default for running programs.
Here's an example, VLC trying to access (or write to) the documents folder.

I can see this protection could be useful, especially with malware, and if necessary, you can provide overrides to allow access.
However, the question arises, why is VLC trying to access %userprofile%\Documents ?

[johns0]

User data is stored in documents for settings and such.

[davexnet]

User data is stored in documents for settings and such.

Hi johns0 -
this occured to me also, but I'm not sure. Do you mean VLC settings? Think that's in appdata.

I looked in the VLC preferences, couldn't see any reference to documents folder

[johns0]

Look in your documents folder,you will see a lot of programs you installed,vlc might be there.

[davexnet]

Look in your documents folder,you will see a lot of programs you installed,vlc might be there.

Yes, you're right, there are some. Seems a strange use of the documents folder, that a program will store settings there.
I thought that was what appdata local and roaming were for

I turned off the controlled folder access, stopped and started VLC, it did not create anything in there.

At least if you want to use this protection, you can create exceptions to allow certain programs through

thanks for the feedback