Probably, many users of the Windows operating system of the tenth modification noticed that it had its own antivirus service called Windows Defender, or "Windows Defender." It works on the principle of a conventional antivirus, however, sometimes it comes to the point that Windows Defender 10 deletes files, for example, to be downloaded to the hard drive, although the user is sure of their safe origin. Here the question arises of removing this component.
How to remove Windows 10 Defender and can it be done?
To begin with, this service is precisely the system component, which, as they say, is “sewn” into the OS itself. Based on this, it can immediately be noted that the question of how to completely remove Windows 10 Defender is, in a sense, absolutely incorrect.
Native Windows components cannot be removed under any pretext. But who said that they cannot be turned off as unnecessary? In our case, this is precisely the solution that allows us to get rid of the manifestations of this annoying service.
How can I remove Windows 10 Defender in the simplest way?
There are several basic methods for deactivating the Windows Defender service. Keep in mind that the completion of its work in the same "Task Manager" will not lead to anything, since it automatically activates after about fifteen minutes or starts up with the system when it is restarted.
But it is not all that bad. It turns out that the question of how to remove Windows 10 Defender, or at least turn it off, is completely solved by installing any third-party antivirus package on the system. In this regard, the tenth modification of Windows behaves surprisingly correctly, giving the right to monitor potential threats to a regular scanner of another developer. If after installing it, enter the Windows Defender settings, all the parameters will be inactive. But keep in mind that after removing the antivirus, Windows Defender is automatically activated again. But disconnecting it will have to be more complicated methods. To begin, consider the simplest option.
Disable protection
Suppose that the user does not have third-party security software yet, and the Windows Defender service is, to put it mildly, too active. What to do in this case?
In this situation, in the matter of how to remove Windows 10 Defender, you can use its own settings, which are accessed through the settings of the settings and the update and security section, where in the Defender settings real-time protection is simply disabled by setting the slider to the off position. Again, there is no guarantee that the service will not be activated again.
Using Group Policy Settings
Now we’ll see how to remove “Windows 10 Defender” permanently (disable it completely). To do this, you need to change some settings of group policies and work with the registry keys.
First, use the "Run" console, in which the gpedit.msc command is written. In the editor, through the section of administrative templates and the subsection of system components, you need to find the Endpoint Protection service, and in the right part - the disconnect option. Next, double-click to call the window for changing values, where the line "Enabled" is highlighted.
Sometimes, instead of the above parameters, the Windows Defender section and the Turn Off Windows Defender disable option can be used. It all depends on the modification of the system itself (Home, Pro, etc.).
System registry
But that's not all, because after disabling the above service in group policies, you can often see the appearance of notifications about its errors. Therefore, when solving the problem of how to remove Windows Defender 10, you must additionally use the registry editor by running it as administrator through the Run console using the regedit line.
The system registry has a higher priority than the group policy editor, so the set key values allow you to not only disable the service forever, but also get rid of errors.
In the HKLM branch, through the SOFTWARE and Policies sections, you need to find the Windows Defender directory, on the right in the editor through RMB select the creation of a new DWORD parameter (32 bits), name it DisableAntiSpyware (naturally, if it is not), then enter the editing mode by double-clicking and set the value to “1,” and then save the changes. Using this method sometimes proves to be sufficient to disable the defender, even without using group policies. But for fidelity it is better to apply both techniques in sequence. That in the first case, that in the second (meaning the editors of the policies and the registry) it is imperative to completely reboot the system.
Instead of a total
As you can already understand, the simple shutdown technique without installing anti-virus software does not give the desired effect. Installing an antivirus partially solves the problem. But if you want to completely deactivate the service, you can’t do this without editing group policies and creating a special parameter for disabling Windows Defender.