When an on-demand scan (ODS) scans a location that contains a junction point or symbolic link, the scanner can also scan the physical location for that junction point.
This ability can cause the scanner to initially scan the junction point on the
C: drive, and then jump to scan the physical location of the junction point on the designated drive, such as the
D: or
E: drive, and even a mapped network drive. For example, ODS scans the files in junction point
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\AppData, then in the corresponding physical location
C:\Users\Administrator\AppData.
NOTE: In this example, the files aren’t scanned twice. The ODS cache contains the details and skips over, but both paths are checked.
The result can be unwanted scanning of physical locations.
Also, if the excluded file is present in a location that is pointed at by a junction point, then ODS might still scan the file. The file is scanned if both the physical location and junction point location aren’t
included in the exclusion list.
For example, if a file is present in
Address 1: C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local and is included in the exclusion list with the path, then ODS still scans the file. The reason is because there’s a junction point to
Address 1 by default in Windows, namely,
C:\Users\McAfee\Local Settings.