Turn On or Off Real-time Protection for Microsoft Defender Antivirus  

cb360t said:

Hi Brink,

I found a toggle solution at this site:
https://www.addictivetips.com/window...on-windows-10/

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Update on the Powershell script to display the status of Real-time Protection when you toggle it.


Open Notepad and paste the following in it. Save it as tog.ps1.

Code:

$preferences = Get-MpPreference #gets preferences for the Windows Defender scans and updates
Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring (!$preferences.DisableRealtimeMonitoring) #toggle Real-time Protection ON/OFF
$status = $preferences.DisableRealtimeMonitoring #store current status of Real-time Protection in $status
Write-host " "
if ($status) {
   Write-host "Real-time Protection is  ON"
} Else {
   Write-host "Real-time Protection is  OFF"
}
Write-host " "
Write-host "Press any key to exit"
$host.UI.RawUI.ReadKey("NoEcho,IncludeKeyDown")|out-null #pause and wait for key press

Right-click on an empty area on your desktop and select Shortcut.
Paste the following in the ‘Browse’ box but replace the ‘Path to script’ with the actual path to the script you created.

%SystemRoot%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "C:\Utilities\+Misc\tog.ps1"

Once you’ve created the shortcut, right-click it and select the ‘Run as administrator’ option.
When you run the script, the current status of Real-time Protection will be displayed as ON or OFF.
Of course, you can also pin the shortcut to the start menu and/or the taskbar.

small typo in section 4.2

2. Enter the command below you want to use into PowerShell, and press Enter. (see screenshots below)

(Turn on)
Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring 0
or
Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring $true

OR

(Turn off)
Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring 1
or
Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring $false

the $true and $false are backwards - in powershell $false is 0 and $true is 1 (or any other number).

Thank you lx07. Now corrected. :)

Hello Niush, and welcome to Ten Forums. :)

I noticed that the setting is grayed out (disabled) in Windows Defender Security Center. Do you have a group policy set for this?

Niush,

If you haven't already, you could see if a repair install may be able to fix it first to hopefully avoid a reset.

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade Windows 10 Tutorials