Windows Defender is one of the applications that includes the ecosystem of the operating system, and even for Mac. It is about a security feature built in by Microsoft to prevent and protect users from malicious or potentially dangerous software. For this reason, every time this tool detects a dangerous file, it will put it in quarantine so that it does not infect the computer.
However, it is still an extra feature of Windows, and you might find yourself multiple reasons to disable it on your computer. For this reason, today we are going to guide you step by step so that you can achieve it in a matter of minutes.
Disabling Windows Defender is faster than it seems. Although Microsoft has been working hard on integrating this feature into its operating system; they also offer an easy way for us to get rid of it if necessary.
How to disable Windows Defender?
To disable Windows Defender just go into system settings. Here inside you can modify certain sections of the security of the operating system and, of course, adapted to your interests.
The first thing you should do is go to windows security. There are several methods to enter here.
- From the taskbar: You can do this by clicking the application icon on the taskbar.
- With the search engine operating system: a second option is to write windows security in the search bar.
- From Settings: the third method is to enter directly from the application Setting of the operating system, click Privacy & Security and later in windows security.
Once you have entered, follow this procedure:
- Enter to Virus and Threat Protection.
- In front of you you will see a list of options. scroll to Virus and threat protection settings And enter.
- You will see several switches, each one under its own section.
- The one we need to disable to turn off Windows Defender is the option Real-time protection.
This procedure will disable Windows Defender on your computer. Please note that the layer of protection created by Microsoft will not be able to protect your device, so during this time you will find yourself exposed to potential viruses and threats.
Fortunately, if you want to activate it again to restore the protection shield, just follow the steps above and activate Real-time protection. This should leave everything exactly as it was before.
Also, in this section you will be able to control other features of Windows Defender. You can choose to turn cloud-based protection on or off, protection against tampering by others, automatic submission of samples to Microsoft, and a few more.
Windows Defender may turn on again after a while. This can happen after a big update or because the system detects that it has been unprotected for a very long time. You can choose to turn it off again by following the steps above, although there is also a way to turn off Windows Defender features entirely.
How to completely disable Windows 10 antivirus
Using this method you will have to touch the Windows registry. This It is not highly recommended if you have not used it before or if you don’t know where you’re entering. In any case, this way you can permanently disable Windows Defender on your computer.
Of course, before touching the Windows registry it is best to back up the registry; or, a restore point of the operating system in case we find ourselves with a problem that is difficult to solve.
If you have already done the above steps, just follow the guide below:
- Open the window Execute using the command Windows + R.
- In the text window, type regedit and then press Enter.
- Using the folders and arrows in the left column, navigate to the path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Policies/Microsoft/Windows Defender.
- Once here, right click on the right window and create a value DWORD 32 bit.
- In the name, write DisableAntiSpyware.
- Assign it the value 1 in the creation window.
Ready. Now you just have to restart your computer. You will see that Windows Defender has been permanently disabled.
In case you want to activate it again, you just have to go to the route indicated in the steps and assign the value 0 to DisableAntiSpyware. You can also directly delete the registry value and it will produce the same effect, activating Microsoft’s protection again.