This brief tutorial will take you through the steps required to disable Windows Defender in Windows 7.
Note: If you’re using Windows Vista, see this tutorial on how to disable Windows Defender in Vista.
If you’d rather use your own spyware and trojan remover, having Windows Defender also running can be a bit of a moot point. This tutorial will show you how to disable it.
- If you open the Windows Task Manager and select the Services tab, you’ll notice WinDefend is running. This is Windows Defender. There are a couple ways to disable it, but the one I outline will show you how to re-enable it should you need/want to.
- Click the “Start Orb” and type in defender into the text box. Select Windows Defender from the items that appear in the window above.
- Select Tools from the main Windows Defender screen.
- Select Options from the Settings section.
- From the left navigation pane, select Administrator.
- Now remove the check mark from the box labeled Use this program. Click the Save button in the bottom right corner.
- Click Yes when prompted to make the change.
- And now Windows Defender is turned off. You can use the “click here to turn it on” link if you want to re-enable it (just launch Windows Defender the same way you did in step #2 above).
- Now if you check the Services section of the Task Manager you’ll see that Windows Defender has been stopped.
- That’s it – you’re done!