Checking for viruses and adding ransomware protection

Monitoring and scanning for viruses or ransomware on a Windows Server historically isn't a task that would have shown up in a book about the operating system, because, in the past, this functionality was always provided by third-party software. And in the case of ransomware, by the time they hit your network, it's usually too late for any antivirus to do anything about it.

Starting with Windows 8, we got something called Windows Defender built into the Windows desktop operating system; this provided some semblance of free, built-in antivirus protection. Well, I'm excited to say that Windows Defender has continually improved over the past few years and is now called Windows Security, includes not just antivirus but also ransomware protection, and is available to us inside the Microsoft Server operating system!

Installing third-party antivirus programs on servers has always been dangerous territory because they...