microsoft defender has reached a spectacular level of maturing with windows 10. What started as a basic malware protection more serious, it has become one of the best antiviruses on the market, with the advantage that it is free, lightweight, and is already included and activated with the operating system. However, there are times that we may be interested in deactivating it, but is it possible to do it with Windows 11?
When we install a third-party antivirus, Microsoft Defender is disabled. However, there may be times when it is not deactivated properly, or there may be times when we simply want to temporarily disable the antivirus to install something that is detected as a false positive. It is also possible that, on a weak computer, Microsoft Defender consumes a lot of resources; especially when booting the system. There are lighter options, or if we don’t have the internet connected device, we may not even need the antivirus.
Windows 11 allows you to disable antivirus
In the Security section of Windows 11, luckily, we can disable many antivirus functions, including Real-time Protection, which is the one that usually causes problems when it comes to detecting false positives in files that we know are safe. This protection can only temporarily deactivate, but the rest of the protection modules can be permanently disabled.
So, effectively, we can temporarily disable the protection in Windows. To do this, we go to Settings in Windows 11, and there we enter the Privacy security tab. In there, let’s windows security. Once there, click on the option that says Antivirus and threat protection. In there, we just have to go to the part of managing the configuration of Real-time protection, and disable it.
It can also be permanently disabled
This deactivation is temporary, so if we want to deactivate it completely, we will have to go to the Local Group Policy Editor. To go to this section, it is necessary to disable the function of Tamper Protection within the same section where real-time protection is temporarily disabled.
To do this, we look for theLocal Group Policy Editor«, or gpedit.msc. In there, let’s Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Microsoft Defender Antivirus. Once we get there, we look for the option «Disable Microsoft Defender Antivirus«. We double click, and we give Enabled. Now we just have to restart, and we will have the Windows 10 antivirus permanently disabled.
These are the best options we have for disable Microsoft Defender in Windows 11. Another option is to use programs like Defender Control or Configure Defender. This type of program allows you to manage a multitude of settings directly from the program and with a couple of clicks without having to navigate through the system settings.