How to Turn On or Off Microsoft Defender Antivirus in Windows 10  

Matthew Wai said:

It does not work on my Windows 10 Version 20H2. I have clicked on "Disable Windows Defender" multiple times, but Windows Defender is still running as shown below:

Hello Matthew,

Just to verify, did you first turn off Microsoft Defender Antivirus Tamper Protection?

Matthew Wai said:

It does not work on my Windows 10 Version 20H2.

You are running version 1.9. Version 2.0 has removed the command line used by malware.
Aside from disabling the tamper protection, you should also put the app into the exclusion list.

Or you can install 3rd party AV (like 360 TSE), disable Defender, uninstall AV. The setting will stick.

Defender Control v2.0

I recognize that this is an old thread, but I want you participants in the thread to know that the latest Sordum Defender Control (v. 2.1) works beautifully on both W10 and W11 21H2.

Akaizukim said:

Hi Shawn!
Thank you so much for posting this thread, I got the link from the microsoft forum, and now my laptop's windows defender has finally been back to normal. I haven't got any good resolution until now.
a question, can I delete that downloaded .reg file since it has already merged? or should I put it in a certain file in C drive?
thanks again!

Hello Akaizukim, and welcome to Ten Forums.

Sure you can delete the REG file now if wanted. It's only needed for the merge, and not needed afterwards unless you just wanted to save it in a Tweaks folder somewhere to keep up with what you have done.

avada said:

Does this still work?
I disabled defender via group policy, and I also have tamper protection off. But mspmpeng.exe is still running.
So do these methods not work now? Is it impossible to disable defender?

Hello,

It still works, but mspmpeng.exe will always run as a background process.

You can verify in Windows Security instead.