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Windows 10: How To Permanently Disable Windows Defender

  • Article
This topic is a how to.

Please keep it as clear and simple as possible. Avoid speculative discussions as well as a deep dive into underlying mechanisms or related technologies.

Introduction 

Caution
It's against all best practices to remove or disable Windows Defender. At least you should have alternative protection on your system.

Even if it is not recommended, sometimes it could be necessary to permanently disable Windows Defender.

This kind of operation cannot be performed using the Windows Defender UI, since the OS will automatically re-enable it at the next boot: depending on the Windows 10 version you're running, disabling Windows Defender requires either setting a group policy by means of the Local Group Policy Editor or cresting a value in the Windows registry by using the Windows Registry Editor.

Disabling Windows Defender using the Local Group Policy Editor

If you're running Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, or Education, you can use the Local Group Policy Editor to disable Windows Defender Antivirus on your computer permanently by taking the following steps:

  1. open the Local Group Policy Editor
  2. browse to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Defender Antivirus
  3. on the right pane of the Local Group Policy Editor window, double-click the Turn off Windows Defender Antivirus policy
  4. select the Enabled option to disable Windows Defender
  5. click Apply and then click OK; restart the computer to apply the change.

Disabling Windows Defender using the Registry Editor

if you're running Windows 10 Home, you won't have access to the Local Group Policy Editor. However, you can modify the registry to permanently disable the default antivirus by taking the following steps

  1. open the Windows Registry Editor and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender
  2. if you don't see the DisableAntiSpyware value on the right pane of the Registry Editor's window, right-click the Windows Defender key, select New and click on DWORD (32-bit) Value
  3. name the newly created value DisableAntiSpyware and press Enter
  4. double-click the newly created value and set its value to 1
  5. click OK and restart the computer to apply the change

See Also