Windows 10: Turn On or Off Windows Defender in Windows 10

a guide how to free the space taken by Defender on the drive would be very useful.
my "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender" folder is almost 800MB, such a waste in my opinion.

 

Hello sahafiec, *Smile

You could run Disk Cleanup to free up space for Windows Defender and other items.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...dows-10-a.html

 

thanks Brink, I do it regularly.
I just don't understand why Defender should take so much space.
it backs up scans, definitions and tons of other thigs.
just imagine Defender alone takes almost as much space as a WinXP installation.
something is going wrong there, just because drives are getting bigger we don't need to fill them with trash, do we!? *Wink

 

HI everyone
I am also getting the defender error and found this forum via M-soft and have followed all the advice but nothing has happened or changed.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/p...8-07da52ab0502
This is what I have done;
I deleted my Norton using the removal tool and restarted the pc then
I tried your link
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5...dows-10-a.html

I typed this into the run box HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender
and it didn't work
so I did regedit and went to defender that way and again nothing happened
I have even tried "DWORD" in the run box and again nothing happened

what am I dong wrong?
Please keep it simple
I have windows 10 home installed

Thanks

 

Hello Pash, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

What error are you getting?

If for Windows Update, then you might see if resetting Windows Update may help.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html

 

Hi Brink
It was the windows defender and Norton issue and me panicing but it seems to have sorted it self out now
so happy days again *Smile
I did try your How to Turn On or Off Windows Defender in Windows 10 yesterday but nothing seemed to work and then this morning I still had that defender message again of the failed update after doing a windows update
but this afternoon everything is ok again


Thanks for getting back to me

 

Great news Pash. *Party

 

I'm having a very similar problem and have read through the suggestions. As far as I know the only malware program I have in addition to Defender is Malwarebytes, which I have to manually activate because I have the free version which doesn't run in real time. It's basically a backup to Defender for scanning occasionally. I've both running on my system since upgrading to Windows 10 with no problem. This seems to have started since the last Windows update on March 8.


Now I'm getting the popup from Defender saying my computer is at risk. When I go into Defender to turn it on, it times out and fails to turn on. No amount of time I wait after restarting makes a difference. I've been on the computer for half an hour, and it's still off according to Defender. However, when I look at my security panel, it shows everything on. So...this is what I see:







Which screen is correct and what can I do about this? It's becoming very frustrating not knowing if my system is really at risk or not.

I've read about both the reg edit to disable the notification and to force Defender on, and also saw a post on Microsoft forums that says this is an issue with recent windows updates and a permissions glitch.

 

Hello Stormhawke, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

It looks like you may just need to turn on real-time protection in Windows Defender.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...dows-10-a.html

 

Thank you. I did read that post, and most of it seems irrelevant because every setting except for the program itself tells me Real Time Protection is already on (as shown in the picture in my above post). I don't show the Settings screen, but it also says WD is on. So I can't follow those steps anyway.

That only leaves option 4 in that post, which asks me to download something I don't know if I can trust. It still begs the question, how can the program be saying it's off, but my control panel and settings say it's on, and which is correct?

 

Your WD screenshot shows that real-time protection is off.

Are you able to use OPTION TWO or OPTION THREE below to turn it on?

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...dows-10-a.html

 

The program interface shows it's off, however to the left in my control panel snapshot, as highlighted, it shows everything is on. In addition:





So, the info in my posts so far rule out Option 2. I can't turn on what's already showing up as on in either the settings or control panel interface. And I can't turn the program on using program interface because it fails to turn on. Option 3 doesn't apply because I don't have Pro, Enterprise or Education.

So...again, we have the mystery of why the program interface says it's off, but my system thinks it's on.

 

As a test, use OPTION FOUR to turn it on to see if that may help.

If not, then see if toggling it off and on may.

 

When the value DisableAntiSpyware is present, even when set to 0, WD thinks, it if off.
The best way to reset it, is to delete the whole folder. Or download bat and run it as admin.

reg delete "HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender" /f

 

Yep, that's what the download in OPTION TWO does. *Smile