Your organization has Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange (SMSMSE) installed on Microsoft Exchange Server 2019. Your organization wants the best performance from the machine and you are looking for ways to exclude the email scanning directories from antivirus scanning.

Symptoms
Symantec AntiVirus client may not have automatic exclusions for Exchange 2019. These exclusions may need to be set manually to prevent the local antivirus solution from scanning directories that may conflict with mail flow or cause issues to the integrity of the Information Store.

Automatic exclusions for Exchange 2010 were introduced in SEP 11 RU6 MP1.  To take advantage of the latest enhancements and improvements, Symantec Technical Support recommends that the latest release of SEP and other software be installed on all servers.
 

Email scanning should be performed by your organization's email scanning application, such as Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange, while the local antivirus application should only scan non-email related folders.


Which folders to exclude
1. Microsoft's article below describes the folders that you must exclude from any local antivirus software (Symantec or otherwise) to ensure proper functionality of Exchange Server 2010.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb332342.aspx

Depending on the role of the Exchange server, you may need to set different exclusions according to the Microsoft article listed above.

2. After you set exclusions for Exchange 2010, it is recommended to exclude the following SMSMSE folder:

<Install drive>\Program Files (x86)\Symantec\SMSMSE\7.9\Server

...where 7.9 is the version of SMSMSE you have installed.

3. The presence of email scanning tools for SEP and other antivirus software may conflict with mail flow on the server. The best practice is to install the antivirus client without the email scanning tools by performing a custom installation. These email scanning tools do not honor exclusions and have built-in SMTP activities that may interfere with normal and efficient email production.

For details, read How to improve email performance by removing the email scanning tools of the Symantec Endpoint Protection or Antivirus product.



How to set the exclusions
Follow the directions for your configuration.

• If SMSMSE is installed on a managed (it receives definitions and settings from another server) SEP client, read Creating Centralized Exception policies in Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager.
• If SMSMSE is installed on a unmanaged SEP client, read How to add a Security Risk Exception on an unmanaged Symantec Endpoint Protection Client.
• If SMSMSE is installed with Symantec AntiVirus 10.x, read Excluding specific drives and folders from Symantec AntiVirus scans.

Notes:

• Setting exclusions remotely through terminal services may not be successful. Make these changes locally to ensure that you have full rights and permissions.
• If you have difficulty setting these exclusions within Endpoint Protection, please contact support and speak to the Endpoint Protection Team.
• If you would like clarification or assistance with the Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange product, please contact support and speak to the Symantec Mail Security for Exchange group.