Wildcards in exclusions

You can use the ? and * wildcards to represent 1 or more characters when excluding files, folders, detection names and hashes, and potentially unwanted programs.You can use the ? and * wildcards to represent 1 or more characters when excluding files and folders from scanning.

Valid wildcards

Wildcard character	Name	Represents	Example
?	Question mark	Single character in the exact location in the file, folder, or path name. You can use a single ? character as the root of a file path. For example, ?:\ABC matches the root-level ABC folder for all drives.	W?? excludes WWW, but doesn't exclude WW or WWWW.
*	Asterisk	Multiple characters, except backslash (\). Doesn't cross folder boundaries. Note \ at the beginning of a file path is not valid. Use \ instead. For example: \ABC\.	C:\Users\Will* matches path names, such as C:\Users\William, C:\Users\Willamina, and C:\Users\WillAnderson, but not subfolders of those names.
**	Double asterisk	One or more of any characters, including backslash (\). Crosses folder boundaries.	C:\Users\Will matches path names, such as C:\Users\William, C:\Users\Willamina, and C:\Users\WillAnderson and all their subfolders. C:\ABC\\XYZ matches C:\ABC\DEF\XYZ and C:\ABC\XYZ.
\**\	Double asterisk	One or more complete path components (including a single backslash), delimited by backslashes.	C:\**\Favorites\ matches any folder named Favorites on drive C.s.

Wildcards can appear in front of a backslash (\) in a path. For example, C:\ABC\*\XYZ matches C:\ABC\DEF\XYZ.

Wildcard examples

Example	Description
**\Temp\test.docx	Excludes a specific file in a folder named Temp anywhere on the system.
**\test.docx	Excludes a specific file anywhere on the system.
\**\test.docx	Excludes a specific file in any folder on a specific drive.
Users\**\Documents\Microsoft User Data\	Excludes any folder under Users and any folder under User Data, if you select Also exclude subfolders.
C:\Documents and Settings\**\Favorites\	Excludes the Favorites folder for all users.
C:\**\Favorites\	Excludes any folder named Favorites on the C: drive.
\Temp\	Excludes the Temp folder in any location, on any drive, including: C:\Temp D:\Windows\temp C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\temp
*\Temp\.tmp	Excludes any file with a .tmp extension in a folder named Temp anywhere on the system.
*\.html	Excludes any file with an .html extension anywhere on the system.
C:\Windows\Temp\inifile?.	Excludes all files named inifileX, where X is any valid character for a file name, in any folder name beginning with Temp under C:\Windows.
\*\.tmp	Excludes all files with the .tmp extension (*.tmp) in any folder on a specific drive.
D:\*\.tmp	Excludes any *.tmp files on the D: drive.

Environment variables in exclusions

In addition to wildcards, you can use system environment variables, such as %SystemRoot% in exclusions. Exclusions don't support user environment variables, such as %UserProfile%. The reason for this is that the on‑access scanner runs under the Windows LocalSystem account and can only access the system environment variables.