How to disable Windows Defender in Windows 10 permanently

Martin Brinkmann
Oct 25, 2015
Updated • Aug 20, 2020
Windows, Windows tips
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68

Windows Defender is the default antivirus solution of Windows 10 just like it has been on Windows 8. The program is enabled by default and will turn itself off if another antivirus solution is installed provided that it is recognized by the operating system.

One core difference between the implementation on Windows 8 and 10 is that you cannot turn off Windows Defender completely anymore using the preferences provided in the application.

A click on Settings in Windows Defender opens the control panel for the program in the new Windows Settings application. While you find options to toggle the program's real-time protection there, it is indicated right on the page that this is just a temporary state change.

You can turn this off temporarily, but if it's off for a while we'll turn it back on automatically.

It is unclear why Microsoft made the decision to change the behavior of Windows Defender in this regard. What is certain however is that it will annoy users who want to disable it permanently on the computer they are working on.

real-time protection

While you could go ahead and disable Windows Defender whenever it enables itself automatically again, you may prefer a solution that is permanent.

There are two options that you have to disable Windows Defender permanently on a system running Windows 10. Please note that one of the methods is only available in some versions of Windows.

Method 1: Disabling Windows Defender using the Group Policy

turn off windows defender antivirus

The Group Policy Editor is only part of Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise. To turn off Windows Defender using it do the following:

  1. Tap on the Windows-key to open the Start Menu.
  2. Type gpedit.msc and hit enter.
  3. Confirm the UAC prompt to continue.
  4. You find the setting by following this path: Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Defender Antivirus.
  5. There you find the policy "Turn off Windows Defender Antivirus".
  6. Double-click on the policy.
  7. Set the state of the policy to enabled in the window that opens, and click ok to save the change.

The policy reads:

This policy setting turns off Windows Defender.

If you enable this policy setting, Windows Defender does not run, and computers are not scanned for malware or other potentially unwanted software.

If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, by default Windows Defender runs and computers are scanned for malware and other potentially unwanted software.

Windows Defender is disabled immediately when you make the change. Any attempt to run the program afterwards results in the following error message.

windows defender turned off

To restore the functionality of the app, set the policy state to disabled or not configured.

Method 2: Disabling Windows Defender using the Windows Registry

disable anti spyware

Update: The August 2020 update for Defender, version 4.18.2007.8, introduced a change that ignores the Registry entry. It cannot be used anymore to disable Microsoft Defender Antivirus on Windows 10. End

You may disable Windows Defender in the Windows Registry as well. Basically, it is the same setting that gets written to it when you disable the application in the Group Policy Editor.

  1. Tap on the Windows-key to open the Start Menu.
  2. Type regedit.exe and hit enter.
  3. Confirm the UAC prompt to continue.
  4. Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender
  5. If you see the preference DisableAntiSpyware on the right double-click on it and set it to 1 to disable Windows Defender.
  6. If the preference does not exist, right-click on Windows Defender and select New > Dword (32-bit) Value, and name it DisableAntiSpyware.
  7. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Real-Time Protection
  8. Right-click on Real-Time Protection and select New > Dword (32-bit) Value, and name it DisableRealtimeMonitoring.
  9. Set the value to 1.

To restore Windows Defender at a later point in time, delete the key or set its value to 0.

Method 3: Normal disable and Task Scheduler

If both methods outlined above don't work, you may still have another ace up your sleeve that you can try out.

  1. Tap on the Windows-key to open the Start Menu.
  2. Type taskschd.msc and hit enter to open the Windows Task Scheduler.
  3. You may get an UAC prompt that you need to accept.
  4. Navigate to Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Windows Defender.
  5. There you find "Windows Defender Scheduled Scan" which you need to double-click on.
  6. Switch to the Conditions tab when the window opens.
  7. Select "Start the task only if the computer is idle for" and set a large idle time amount there to prevent it from being run on the system.

Method 4: NoDefender

nodefender

If none of the methods work in your case, you may want to try the free program NoDefender, a third party application to turn off Windows Defender on computers running Windows 10.

This should only be a last resort as it is not entirely clear what the program does in the background when you run it.

Alternatives to No Defender are Defender Control and Configure Defender.

Summary
How to disable Windows Defender in Windows 10 permanently
Article Name
How to disable Windows Defender in Windows 10 permanently
Description
Find out how to turn off Windows Defender on Windows 10 permanently.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Dan Donx said on January 15, 2023 at 10:29 am
    Reply

    What mental age of reader are you targeting with the first sentence? 10?

    Why not write an article on how to *avoid* upgrading from W10 to W11. Analogous to those like me who avoided upgrading from 7 to 10 for as long as possible.

    If your paymaster Microsoft permits it, of course.

  2. Dexter said on January 15, 2023 at 11:14 am
    Reply

    5. Rufus
    6. Ventoy

    PS. I hate reading these “SEO optimized” articles.

    1. cdr said on January 15, 2023 at 3:32 pm
      Reply

      I used Rufus to create an installer for a 6th gen intel i5 that had MBR. It upgraded using Setup. No issues except for Win 11 always prompting me to replace my local account. Still using Win 10 Pro on all my other PCs to avoid the bullying.

  3. sv said on January 15, 2023 at 6:40 pm
    Reply

    bit pointless to upgrade for the sake of upgrading as you never know when you’ll get locked out because ms might suddenly not provide updates to unsupported systems.

    ps…. time travelling?
    written. Jan 15, 2023
    Updated • Jan 13, 2023

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on January 16, 2023 at 5:49 am
      Reply

      This happens when you schedule a post in WordPress and update it before setting the publication date.

  4. Anonymous said on January 16, 2023 at 8:24 am
    Reply

    Anyone willing to downgrade to this awful OS must like inflicting themselves with harm.

  5. basingstoke said on January 16, 2023 at 11:18 am
    Reply

    I have become convinced now that anybody who has no qualms with using Windows 11/10 must fit into one of the following brackets:

    1) Too young to remember a time before W10 and W11 (doesn’t know better)

    2) Wants to play the latest games on their PC above anything else (or deeply needs some software which already dropped W7 support)

    3) Doesn’t know too much about how computers work, worried that they’d be absolutely lost and in trouble without the “”latest security””

    4) Microsoft apologist that tries to justify that the latest “features” and “changes” are actually a good thing, that improve Windows

    5) Uses their computer to do a bare minimum of like 3 different things, browse web, check emails, etc, so really doesn’t fuss

    Obviously that doesn’t cover everyone, there’s also the category that:

    6) Actually liked W7 more than 10, and held out as long as possible before switching, begrudgingly uses 10 now

    Have I missed any group off this list?

    1. Heinz Strunk said on September 19, 2023 at 3:57 pm
      Reply

      You have missed in this group just about any professional user that uses business software like CAD programs or ERP Programs which are 99% of all professional users from this list.

      Linux doesn’t help anyone who is not a linux kid and apple is just a fancy facebook machine.

  6. ilev said on August 24, 2023 at 7:34 pm
    Reply

    Microsoft has removed KB5029351 update

    1. EP said on August 24, 2023 at 9:21 pm
      Reply

      only from windows update though
      KB5029351 is still available from the ms update catalog site

  7. Anonymous said on August 24, 2023 at 11:05 pm
    Reply

    1. This update is labaled as PREVIEW if it causes issues to unintelligent people, then they shouldn’t have allowed Preview updates ot install.

    2. I have installed it in a 11 years old computer, and no problems at all.

    3. Making a big drama over a bluescreen for an updated labeled as preview is ridiculous.

    This is probably another BS internet drama where people ran programs and scripts that modified the registry until they broke Windows, just for removing stuff that they weren’t even using just for the sake of it.
    Maybe people should stop playing geeks and actually either use Windows 10 or Windows 11, but don’t try to modify things just for the sake of it.

    Sometimes removing or stopping things (like defender is a perfect example) only need intelligence, not scripts or 3rd party programs that might mess with windows.

  8. john said on August 24, 2023 at 11:17 pm
    Reply

    Windows 11 was a pointless release, it was just created because some of the Windows team wanted to boost sales with some sort of new and improved Windows 10. Instead, Microsoft cannot support one version well let alone two.

    1. John G. said on August 25, 2023 at 12:08 pm
      Reply

      Windows 11 is the worst ugly shame by Microsoft ever. They should release with every new W11 version a complete free version of Starallback inside just to make this sh** OS functionally again.

  9. EP said on August 25, 2023 at 3:10 pm
    Reply

    motherboard maker MSI has recently released a statement regarding the “unsupported processor” blue screen error for their boards using Intel 600/700 series chipsets & to avoid the KB5029351 Win11 update:
    https://www.msi.com/news/detail/MSI-On–UNSUPPORTED-PROCESSOR–Error-Message-of-Windows-11-Update-KB5029351-Preview-142215

  10. EP said on August 29, 2023 at 7:32 pm
    Reply

    check out the following recent articles:

    Neowin – Microsoft puts little blame on its Windows update after UNSUPPORTED PROCESSOR BSOD bug:
    https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-puts-little-blame-on-its-windows-update-after-unsupported-processor-bsod-bug/

    BleepingComputer – Microsoft blames ‘unsupported processor’ blue screens on OEM vendors:
    https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-blames-unsupported-processor-blue-screens-on-oem-vendors/

  11. Leonard Britvolli said on August 30, 2023 at 10:33 pm
    Reply

    While there may be changes or updates to the Windows 10 Store for Business and Education in the future, it is premature to conclude that it will be discontinued based solely on rumors.

  12. sembrador said on September 5, 2023 at 9:32 pm
    Reply

    My advice, I left win 15 years ago. Now I’m a happy linux user (linuxmint) but there is Centos, Fedora, Ubuntu depending on your needs.

  13. EP said on September 6, 2023 at 11:55 am
    Reply

    motherboard maker MSI has recently released new BIOS/firmware updates for their Intel 600 & 700 series motherboards to fix the “UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR” problem (Sept. 6):

    https://www.msi.com/news/detail/Updated-BIOS-fixes-Error-Message–UNSUPPORTED-PROCESSOR–caused-BSOD-on-MSI-s-Intel-700-and-600-Series-Motherboards-142277

  14. Raphael Benzo said on September 24, 2023 at 9:52 pm
    Reply

    I try to disable the Diagnostics Tracking Service (Connected Devices Platform User Services) but it wont let me disable it, any help will be greatly appreciated.
    Tank you for your help

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