Microsoft Defender Antivirus is an application that can prevent, remove, and quarantine malicious software, including spyware,” the company noted. “DisableAntiSpyware specifies whether to disable Microsoft Defender Antivirus. 8) update to Microsoft Defender Antivirus,” Microsoft said. “This setting is discontinued and will be ignored on client devices, as of the August 2020 (version. 8), Microsoft said it has discontinued the ‘DisableAntiSpyware’ key and values will be ignored on client devices. Once you complete the above steps, Windows Defender will disable permanently and you can always re-enable it using the same instructions above, but the value should be ‘0’.Īfter the August 2020 update (version. Microsoft previously allowed advanced users to disable Windows Defender Antivirus by editing Windows Registry. To disable the Defender antivirus permanently with the Registry, users were required to create a new key “DisableAntiSpyware” with the value set to ‘1’. Can you disable Windows Defender using Registry Editor? Once done, make sure that you enable the tamper protection in Windows Security app.

If you want to enable the protection again, repeat the above steps and select “Not Configured” in the Group Policy editor. If you followed the steps correctly, Microsoft Defender protection will stop working on your device, but you can still open and manage the Windows Security app.

Click on ‘Apply’ to disable Windows Defender protection.

Double-click on “Turn off Microsoft Defender Antivirus policy”.

Click on ‘Microsoft Defender Antivirus’.

Open Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components.

Open Start menu and search for gpedit.msc (Group Policy Editor).

Open Windows Security > Virus & threat protection.

To disable Windows Defender permanently, follow these steps: How to disable Windows Defender permanently

Click on the Real-time protection toggle to turn off the protection temporarily.

Click on the Manage settings link under “Virus & threat protection settings”.

In the Windows Security app, click on Virus & threat protection.

If you want to turn off Windows Defender temporarily when you need to install an app, follow these steps: How to turn off Windows Defender temporarily

How do i turn windows defender off