Windows 10: Solved - How to enable Windows Defender Firewall without uninstalling third party antivirus

A third party antivirus called FortiClient has disabled Windows Defender Firewall WDF on my personal machine. I've disabled its services, renamed its drivers and modified its registry keys in order to disable some of the more invasive corporate monitoring feaatures, including the web filter and telemetry, as well as its built-in antivirus, but uninstalling it completely is not an option for me as I need its VPN functionality to do my job. This third party antivirus is crippled at the neck, and it no longer starts automatically, but I still can't start WDF. Most threads on this issue list

:)

 

windows defender firewall

Hi Faye,

Third-party antivirus programs usually have their own uninstallers provided by the software developer. We suggest checking the developer's website or contacting their support team for assistance with uninstalling their program. After fully uninstalling the
third-party antivirus software, you may turn on Windows Defender by following these steps:

• Click Start.
• Type Windows Defender Security Center and press Enter.
• Click Firewall and network protection.
• Click Private (discoverable) network and click On.
• Click Public (non-discoverable) network and click On.

Let us know if you have any other concerns about Windows Defender.

 

3rd party antivirus/firewall and win10

Antivirus; the attempt by Microsoft to remove (uninstall) or limit 3rd party antivirus and firewalls is truly overreach.

This action is purely designed to make the win10 systems allow Microsoft products and setting not be blocked by other software.

Automatically turning on the built in defender and windows firewall before a 3rd party product has finished updating, being completely uninstalled or temporally paused should not invoke win10 to restart its built in products, but it does infract do this.

This is true for any pc that has any win10 files including the get win10 gwx program in win7 and 8.1.

This corrupts the installation of 3rd party product's so as to not allow the program to use its full capacity, there by making the system venerable.

The only option is to have to uninstall the 3rd party software and reinstall, this can be a real pain to reconfigure on every win10 updates build.

I can only think that this is also why Microsoft is making it difficult to use any other system protection but its own.

A big step in the wrong direction.

 

Use Windows 10 firewall with third party antivirus

Installing third-party antivirus software that does not include its own firewall will not disable Windows' built-in firewall. In this case you can (and should) continue using the Windows firewall.

You might be asking this question because the Windows firewall is now called the Windows Defender firewall. However, it's not actually an integral part of the Windows Defender antivirus/anti-malware software. The Windows firewall existed long before Windows defender...it actually hails all the way back from the days of Windows XP.

The Windows firewall is on by default, so unless you intentionally disable it or install a security software program that does so, it will be enabled and protecting your computer.