Question. How to completely disable WD Smart screen

Before version 1809, I deactivated Smart screen for Apps and files and Microsoft Store. I had Smart screen On only for Edge. By setting up Smart screen this way, I rarely saw smartscreen.exe running in Task manager for more than a few seconds. Normally, when I saw it running it would be when I started the computer and after a few seconds, smartscreen.exe would close itself.

After updating to version 1809, I started noticing that now smartscreen.exe is running all the time.Trying to get rid of it, I now also disabled protection for Edge and expected that after doing so and rebooting, it would not run anymore but it is still running in Task manager.

I dont want smartscreen.exe running. Does anyone know how to solve this without doing anything drastic, or having to go through hoops to achieve what I want. Thanks.

Bo

Thanks for your reply, Brink. I have been disabling Smart screen (as explained in the tutorial) ever since I started using W10 (version 1607), look at picture below, it shows what I am doing and smartscreen.exe running in Task manager. Before 1809, smartscreen.exe only ran for a few seconds after starting the computer and then it faded away. Now, smartscreen.exe remains running forever. What I would like if possible is for smartscreen.exe not to run at all or at least, be as it used to..



Regarding the "reminder", I dont use scanners or applications like Smart screen for security. My security is based on something else that's proven over a long period of time to work for me. I think WD and all its come with is great but is not for me. If I was using an AV, and/or my security was pretty standard, I would be using Smart screen.

Bo

Brink said:

I must admit that I'm not sure why "smartscreen.exe" is still running if you have it turned off in all 3 settings .....

If you manually "End task" the "smarscreen.exe" process, does it stay off?

Yes, I dont understand either why smartscreen.exe stays running all the time even though I turn off all 3 protection features. Before 1809, the process would fade away a few seconds or minutes after booting. Thats what I am used to seeing. But is interesting to notice that, according to the article you linked, the process is supposed to stay running and come and go. The article is from 2017, and thats not what I saw in 2017 regarding smartscreen.exe.

If I click end task to close the process, it closes and comes back after a few minutes.

If you dont have anything else, I might turn On Windows defender and Smart screen, reboot, and after a few hours, turn everything Off again to see if the behavior goes back to what I am used to seeing. That might work. After upgrading to 1809, I did turn On WD to let it update but did not turn On Smart screen.

Bo

Solved. Went back to 1803.

I did it not because of the smartscreen.exe thing but because it feels a lot better than 1809. I like every release of Windows 10 since I got W10, but not this one, what I experienced with 1809 was not pleasant. Too many little things (nothing major) that annoyed me.

Now, I have a few days to think about if I ll take the plunge when MS re-releases 1809 or do what I avoided doing since I bought my W10 (fight MS to be able to do updates at my own pace).

Bo

TairikuOkami said:

I just get rid of it, like of any other pest, that annoys me.

Code:

takeown /f "%WinDir%\System32\smartscreen.exe" /a
icacls "%WinDir%\System32\smartscreen.exe" /grant:r Administrators:F /c
taskkill /im smartscreen.exe /f
del "%WinDir%\System32\smartscreen.exe" /s /f /q

My system also suffers from the smartscreen-using-up-cpu-resources-bug. I disabled it in a similar but less destructive way. I just took ownership of smartscreen.exe and changed all permissions to read-only. This way I can always re-enable it by simply changing the permissions back to default as soon as MS has fixed the issue. Plus since write access to smartscreen.exe is denied and the owner of the file is not TrustedInstaller anymore it should also stop Windows from "magically" re-enabling it. So far the workaround seems to work as smartscreen.exe has not been running anymore plus the processor steps down it's frequency again when idle.

I'm aware of that possibility. But in that case I can still either restore the default permissions or delete smartscreen.exe.