NOTE: Not Configured is the default setting.Ī) Select (dot) Enabled, click/tap on OK, and go to step In the right pane of Windows Defender in Local Group Policy Editor, double click/tap on the Turn off Windows Defender policyĭo step 5 (on) or step 6 (off) below for what you would like to do.Ī) Select (dot) Not Configured or Disabled, click/tap on OK,Īnd go to step 7 below. (see screenshot below)Ĭomputer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Windows Defender In the left pane of Local Group Policy Editor, navigate to the location below. Why has this thing happened and how can I turn Windows Defender off? Since apparently it has not detected that Avast is running, it somehow turned itself back on again.ĭisable Windows Defender with Local Group Policy Settings To Turn On or Off Windows Defender using Group Policy

Furthermore Cortana is running in the background even though I disabled it. I find this all weird since Avast was (and still is) running fine as usual, but now I have a resource hog (Windows Defender) sucking on my PC resources. The update, as far as I can tell, restored a lot of bloatware that was installed on the PC at the time of the purchase, installed some additional Visual Studio components and some new applications, and it turned on Windows Defender. I ran the update on shut down, and this morning when turning the computer on, it completed the updating procedure in about 1 hour.

Yesterday I received a notification of an available update for the OS. I'm using Avast (free version) as antivirus and before the update, Windows Defender was turned off as it should be in case a third party antivirus is installed. I am running Windows 10 on a fairly recent laptop.

Windows defender and avast