Windows Defender is the default antivirus protection in Windows 11 & Windows 10. It is enabled by default and provides real-time protection to protect your computer from viruses, malware, and other threats. The best thing is that, unlike third-party antivirus software, Windows Defender is pretty unintrusive, minimal, and fast. In fact, unless it finds a threat or wants to show occasional automated scan results, it won’t bother you in any way.
While Windows Defender is pretty good at its job, there might be times when you need to disable it temporarily. For example, maybe it is flagging legitimate applications or files as malware or viruses (false positive), you need to test or run a third-party protection software such as Malwarebytes, for troubleshooting purposes, etc. Whatever the reason, when needed, you can easily turn off Windows Defender temporarily with just a few clicks.
In this quick and easy tutorial, I will show you the steps to temporarily disable Windows Defender in Windows 11 and Windows 10. Let’s get started.
Before You Begin
- Windows Defender is also called Windows Security in recent versions. However, I’m using Windows Defender through the article because that’s how it is known to most users.
- You need administrator rights to temporarily turn off Windows Defender.
- The steps below are tested to work on Windows 11 and Windows 10.
Steps to Temporarily Turn Off Windows Defender
To turn off Windows Defender temporarily, all you have to do is disable real-time protection and cloud protection. Here’s how.
- Press the Start button to open the Start menu.
- Enter “Windows Security” in the search bar and click “Open”.
- Click the “Virus & threat protection” option.
- Click “Manage Settings” under “Virus & threat protection settings”.
- Turn Off the “Real-time protection” toggle.
- Turn Off the “Dev Drive protection” toggle (on Windows 11).
- Turn Off the “Cloud-delivered protection” toggle.
- That’s it, you disable Windows Defender temporarily.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
First, we need to open the Windows Defender app. To do that, press the Start button on your keyboard, type “Windows Security” in the Start menu’s search bar, and click the “Open” option.
In the Windows Defender app (Windows Security), click the “Virus & threat protection” option.
On this page, scroll down to the “Virus & threat protection settings” section and click the “Manage settings” option under it. This opens the Windows Defender virus protection settings.
Now, turn off the “Real-time protection” toggle. You will see a UAC prompt, click the “Yes” button to continue.
Next, turn off the “Cloud-delivered protection” toggle.
Note: On Windows 11, you can also turn off the “Dev Drive protection” toggle. This is optional.
That is all. You’ve successfully turned off Windows Defender temporarily. You can now run programs or open files that were previously blocked by Windows Defender.
Turn On Windows Defender
Once you are done, turn on Windows Defender by turning on both “Real-time protection” and “Cloud-delivered protection” toggles in the Windows Security app. Alternatively, restarting the system will also automatically enable Windows Defender.
Note: If you are constantly disabling Windows Defender to run or open a specific file, I recommend you exclude it in Windows Defender instead.
Wrapping Up — Disabling Windows Defender Temporarily
As you can see, temporarily disabling Windows Defender is nothing hard. Simply turn off the Real-time and cloud protection toggles and you are good to go. When you turn on those same toggles or restart your computer, Windows Defender is enabled. Of course, if you want to use third-party software or for any other reason, you can also permanently disable Windows Defender.
Remember that you should not turn off Windows Defender tamper protection unless you specifically need it and you know the risks of doing so. In case you don’t know, the tamper protection feature blocks any program from modifying Windows Defender in any way. Usually, malicious programs try to make you disable the tamper protection and then proceed to change Windows Defender settings to whitelist itself or damage it in some other way to be undetectable.
If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to help.
