After some consideration I disabled Windows Defender in Windows 10 by using the registry. I browsed to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender
and created a new "DWORD (32-bit)" value titled DisableAntiSpyware
with "value data" 1
(hexadecimal) Since then there has been a delay lasting several minutes when attempting to mount an ISO file, resulting in this error:
Both Windows Explorer and WinCDEmu are unable to mount. 7-Zip can extract ISOs, but this process essentially duplicates files and takes a long time.
I'm well aware that disabling antivirus software isn't recommended on Windows, but I eventually found this as mandatory — I have to use "unofficial patches" to disable DRM (mainly SafeDisc and StarForce) in PC games only released on disc in order to run these games in the first place (discontinued activation servers) or on modern operating systems; Windows Defender kept deleting executable files.