Windows 10: Enable or Disable Windows Defender PUA Protection in Windows 10

Not surprising, apparently it's Display Driver Uninstaller itself that's regarded as a PUA, it's detected as: PUA:Win32/DisplayDriverUninstaller https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi...hreatID=239038

I can download it by opening the Windows Defender Security Center and temporarily turning off real-time protection until the download is complete, you have to do the same again to unzip it.

Once downloaded and unzipped, presumably you could then add it as an exclusion so you could run it. I haven't tested that far.

 

You have: Graphics Card: EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FTW3

When you update the 1080 through GeForce, you can choose a clean install and it will remove the old stuff completely.

 

This worked for me. I had trouble turning real time protection on afterwards but was able to after a reboot. Now I have the file it appears that I can run it without WD detecting it again. I'm not sure if that is good or bad but I suppose the only way it would detect it again would be through a scan? I'm surprised WD is not blocking the program when I run it so maybe this PUA protection only works during the download process?

 

From Shawn's note in the tutorial:

What we are doing is a hack, and Enterprise versions have may other security measures to prevent it from installing.

I bet DDU is on the list of PUA's, because a company does not want their users mucking around in the drivers(they probably couldn't without the Admin password anyhow).

 

I believe most peoples preference is still to clean install with DDU but I may be wrong...

 

I can almost guarantee you are wrong. Vast majority of Windows users do not even know how to do a clean install.

 

Even most people who own an Nvidia graphics card? DDU is mentioned widely across the net...

 

Hi Shawn

Allow me to add a little more to your excellent (and functional) tutorial.

According to the Microsoft document Option 2 of the tutorial, which might be worth adding:

Audit Mode (detect PUAs but not block them)
Set-MpPreference -PUAProtection 2 (or AuditMode)

Cheers and keep up the great work you do!

 

Thank you Dimitri. I have updated Option Two to add this. *Smile

 

thanks for the useful powershell update
looks like it reset PUA protection in case of major update (for example 1703 -> 1709)

 

Set-MpPreference is a bunch of PS command, which can be useful.

 

thanks, i am using powershell more and more..

 

Anytime Shawn! *Thumbs

 

To test that PUA protection is working, there is now an EICAR test file you can try downloading.

https://www.amtso.org/feature-settin...-applications/

This is Defender PUA protection in action in Windows 10 Home...

 

Thank you @Bree. I added this to the tutorial to help folks test their PUP protection. *Smile