How to Turn Off/Disable/Uninstall Windows Defender for Windows 10?

Windows 10 offers built-in and reliable security protection in the form of the Windows Defender antivirus program. The antivirus program offers free anti-malware features that are uniquely designed and developed to protect your device against viruses, spyware, ransomware, hackers, and other forms of threats. In most cases, this tool has proven to be helpful in giving complete protection, but there might be certain situations, such as if it prevents you from using a program or slows down your productivity, you need to turn it off. For that, you need to know how to disable Windows Defender for your device.

But before you do, keep in mind that disabling Windows Defender will leave your device vulnerable to various security threats.

Method 1 Disable Windows Defender via Security Center

Follow the steps below to disable Windows Defender for Windows 10 using the Security Center:

1. Press the Windows logo button to open the “Start” menu.
2. Then click on the gear icon located at the bottom left to go to the ‘Settings’ section.
3. Then scroll to the bottom of the settings menu and select ‘Update & security’.
4. At the top left of the window, click ‘Window Security’.
5. Under the “Protected Areas” heading, click the “Virus & Threat Protection” option and the Windows Defender window will open.
6. Select ‘Virus & Threat Protection Settings’ as you scroll down the page.
7. To disable Windows Defender, click the blue ‘On’ switch under the ‘Real-time Protection’ heading and select ‘Yes’ when prompted. It will put Windows Defender’s real-time scanning feature in ‘Off’ mode. You can even try turning it off by clicking the blue ‘On’ switch under the ‘Cloud Provided Protection’ header, then select ‘Yes’ when prompted. This process will not permanently disable Windows Defender Windows 10 and the next time you restart your computer, Windows Defender will turn itself on.

Method 2 Disable Windows Defender through the registry

Here is another method by which you can disable Windows Defender:

1. Press the Windows logo icon to launch the Start menu.
2. Next, open the registry editor, as this will allow you to make changes to basic system functions.

First type ‘regedit’ and then click on the blue regedit icon located at the top of the start menu, select ‘Yes’ when prompted.

3. You should now go to the Windows Defender folder location by expanding one folder at a time as follows:

Double-click the ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE’ folder to expand it.

Then expand the ‘SOFTWARE’ folder and then expand the ‘Policies’ folder. After that, expand the ‘Microsoft’ folder and click on the ‘Windows Defender’ folder.

4. Right-clicking on the ‘Windows Defender’ folder will bring up a drop-down menu.
5. Click ‘New’ at the top of the dropdown menu and a popup menu will appear.
6. In the pop-up menu, click the DWORD (32-bit) value. This will place the blue and white file in the ‘Windows Defender’ window.
7. For the DWORD file name, enter ‘DisableAntiSpyware’ as the file name and press Enter.
8. Double-click the ‘DisableAntiSpyware’ DWORD file to open it, a pop-up window will appear.
9. Enter 1 in the Value data field to include the DWORD value and click ‘OK’.
10. Restart your computer from the start menu and when the computer fully restarts, Windows Defender will be disabled.

This is how you can disable Windows Defender. In case you want to re-enable Windows Defender, you can do it as follows:

1. From the registry editor, open the Windows Defender folder.
2. Click on the ‘Windows Defender’ folder and double click on ‘DisableAntiSpyware’ to open it.
3. Change “Value data” to 0, click “OK” and restart your computer.

How to uninstall Windows Defender?

It is not recommended to prevent Windows Defender from starting automatically when you turn on your computer or to uninstall Windows Defender entirely.

If you turn off Windows Defender or turn it off automatically when you install a third-party app, it doesn’t use as many system resources, so there’s no need to stop the service. For Windows 10, you can disable real-time protection, but continue to use Defender for manual scanning as a backup antivirus app. If you plan to uninstall it, Windows Update will restore Windows Defender anyway. Also, Defender takes up very little disk space and you don’t need to uninstall it to free up disk space on Windows.

Categories: How to
Source: HIS Education