Anti-virus programs, by and large, check each file on your drive before reading or executing it. So surely it slows X-plane down when flying?
Yes indeed it does.
So do you disable the AV scanner on your dedicated X-plane machine?
Well, rather not…
But since you know that every file in your X-Plane12 folder is virus-free, it’s not necessary to waste system resources scanning them every time you run X-Plane.
So, simply tell the AV scanner to skip scanning the X-plane folder.
If you use a 3rd party AV program, follow the instructions for excluding the X-Plane 12 folder from Virus scanning.
If you use the built-in Windows security app (used to be called Microsoft Defender) , type sec in the search box and select Windows Security
Click Virus & threat protection
Under Virus and threat protection settings, click Manage settings
Under Exclusions click Add or remove exclusions. Allow the app to make changes and then
Click + Add an exclusion.
Click Folder from the drop-down list and select your X-Plane 12 folder.