Turn off Windows Defender in Windows 10 permanently
How to turn off Windows Defender in Windows 10 permanently? Sometimes you want to disable Windows Defender for testing purposes. If you have an Antivirus application running, Windows Defender will be automatically disabled. That’s because your Antivirus software will take over the security from now on. This article will teach you how to turn off Windows Defender in Windows 10 temporarily and permanently.
Windows Defender unable to stop service
Start Task Manager on Windows 10. Find the Windows Defender service that is running. Search for the task name Antimalware Service Executable and the service Windows Defender Antivirus Service.
Right-click the Windows Defender Antivirus Service and click Stop.
An error will show up that the operation could not be completed. Access is denied. It’s unable to stop the service.
Start the application Services and right-click on Windows Defender Antivirus Service. You can see that the following options are greyed out:
- Start
- Stop
- Pause
- Resume
- Restart
Check status Windows Defender in Windows Security
Open the Windows Start menu. Type Windows Security.
Click on Virus & threat protection.
Windows Defender is enabled.
If you installed another security product, you would see the following screen.
Disable Windows Defender in Windows 10 temporarily
In Windows Security, click on Virus & threat protection.
Click on Manage Settings.
Click the toggle button under Real-time protection to turn off Windows Defender Antivirus.
Doing that, you can see that:
- The service is still running in the background
- A reboot will automatically enable Windows Defender
How can you disable Windows Defender service completely and keep it disabled after a reboot? Find out in the next step.
How to turn off Windows Defender in Windows 10 permanently
As shown in the previous step, make sure that Real-time protection is Off.
Autoruns for Windows
Download Autoruns for Windows. Extract the zip file and start the executable Autoruns64.exe. If you are running Windows 10 32-bit, start Autoruns.exe.
Go to the tab Services. There will be not many services shown. That’s because Windows services are not showing by default.
Enable Windows Services in Autoruns
Click in the menu bar on Options. Uncheck Hide Windows Entries. This will show the Windows services in the list view.
Search for WinDefend and uncheck the checkbox. Unchecking will prevent the Windows Defender automatic startup after every reboot.
Restart your Windows 10 system.
Verify that Windows Defender is kept turned off after Windows 10 restart
After a restart, start Task Manager. There is no more Windows Defender service running.
Start Windows Security and have a look at Virus & threat protection. You will see that there is a spinning icon, or the status is showing as unknown. That’s because it’s fetching the information.
Give it a couple of minutes. After that, you will see that Virus & threat protection is disabled.
Revert the changes
If you like to revert the changes, click on the Restart Now button in Windows Security.
Keep on reading: Disable Windows Firewall with PowerShell »
Conclusion
In this article, you learned how to turn off Windows Defender in Windows 10 permanently. Make sure to follow the exact steps, as shown in the article. After doing that, Windows Defender will be kept turned off.
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This Post Has 6 Comments
It did work after I restarted my PC but then I shut my PC down and later when I opened again it was still showing on task manager.
thanks,
the policy and registry tweaks don’t work now. but this method worked
That’s right. We used to add a registry or edit the policy. It was not working anymore, and I had to find a solution. You are most welcome.
it still says access is denied…
You did get an access denied message when you missed a step. Take your time and do the steps carefully. It should work.
Thanks Ali tajran, it worked for me