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I have recently installed Win 10 Pro
No matter how many times i try to disable Defender Antivirus with Group Policy Editor (Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Microsoft Defender Antivirus) by activating the policy "Turn off Windows Defender Antivirus" and clicking OK, Windows just ignores all my attempts and revert it back on like nothing happened...
It just turns Turn off Windows Defender Antivirus from enabled back to Not configured
When i close gpedit and open it back again i can see it's back to Not configured
I've been using PC's for 25 years without Antiviruses by using only common sense and Process Explorer
Why is Microsoft forcing me to use something i don't want on my own computer?
Hey,
I think I found out a very good workaround for the POLICY Setting getting reset to "Not Configured" every time you restart Group Policy Editor. I had the same problem and guessed out (correctly) that it was MsMpEng.exe running in the background that was resetting the policy back to "Not Configured".
So, before making any changes to the policy, head over to Task Manager, then to Performance Monitor from the Performance tab. Find MsMpEng.exe in any of the tabs in it (mostly on top in Memory or CPU tabs) and click on Suspend Process.
Then make the changes as required in the Group Policy Editor. It won't get reverted back. Please reply if it works, or didn't work.
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Great idea! Worked on lastest insider release. This must be the best way to handle WD.
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Awesome. Totally works
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I had the same issue on Win 11.
It works, thanks a lot!
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look like microshit fixed also this. I can’t disable MsMpEng.exe
They want accept that no one wants all of their blotware, I don’t want to have Microsoft Defender, I don’t want to have Edge, etc.
Edit: Obvs I’m the admin and I opened Performance Monitor as Admin
Sorry, my fault.
I test again on my two devices, one is 2004 and another is 20H2. The Group policy method on 2004 machine succeed and on 20H2 machine failed, just like yours.
On 20H2 machine, after I enabled Turn off Windows Defender Antivirus and restart computer, Windows Defender is not turned off even this policy return back Not Configured.
So I search online and find out this good case, try the tool named Autoruns to disable Windows Defender service.
https://www.tenforums.com/antivirus-firewalls-system-security/167105-unable-disable-windows-defender-1909-a.html
it worked, thnx for effort
you are welcome
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Microsoft is a s#!t show. One would think that it should have been though through when they added the tamper protection. So instead of running my infrastructure via GP and various tools, I'm forced to visit 200 offices to disable tamper protection so that MS Defender can be properly disabled with GP. Mmmmkay...
This is pure genius. It's like they have a group of kids that were dropped on their head doing development now. Instead of building better products, their mottos is "Make it harder, longer, and more complicated - Windows 24, it's the new OS." I can't wait until 2025. Linux will be the OS of choice for my company. It may be more complicated to run, but once it's running - nothing changes.
I guess it burns me because at my age, I'd like to do less work and get home early. Every time I turn around Microsoft is making ignorant changes that make no sense and cost me day after day after day.