How To Disable Windows Defender TOTALLY

[John]

I need to totally disable Windows Defender. I have stopped the service and
disabled it. However I still get the "Blocked Program" notice on a program
WD says is "Permitted". What else must I delete to kill WD once and for all?

 

[Jon]

I need to totally disable Windows Defender. I have stopped the service and
disabled it. However I still get the "Blocked Program" notice on a program
WD says is "Permitted". What else must I delete to kill WD once and for
all?

You can disable Windows Defender totally if you like, but it will make no
difference to that particular message, which is a Windows / UAC message -
Windows Defender only ties in for viewing the startup programs that were
blocked.

You can also turn off UAC, but then you may as well turn off all your other
security measures at the same time, since they would be silently toggled off
by the first decent piece of rogue software that gets on your system.

A better approach would be to reorganize your start-up programs so that the
prompt doesn't appear in the first place.

But if you're determined to turn off Defender from starting up, then as well
as disabling the service, you'd need to disable / delete the 'Windows
Defender' entry under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Start > msconfig > Startup
and then unchecking the entry is an easy (+reversible ) way of doing that.

 

[Cal Bear '66]

In addition to deleting an entry in the registry, you can put a semicolon before
the command to prevent an item from loading at startup.


I Bleed Blue and Gold
GO BEARS!

 

[John]

Thank you for your great help. I agree with your statement, "A better
approach would be to reorganize your start-up programs so that the
prompt doesn't appear in the first place."

However the offending program is already considered "Permitted" by Defender
so there's little I can do. It appears to be a Defender bug I can't work
around.

 

[The poster formerly known as 'The Poster Formerly]

I need to totally disable Windows Defender. I have stopped the service and
disabled it. However I still get the "Blocked Program" notice on a program
WD says is "Permitted". What else must I delete to kill WD once and for all?

Go to add/remove programs in control panel, and remove defender under
the remove windows components tab there.

--
Priceless quotes in m.p.w.vista.general group:
http://protectfreedom.tripod.com/kick.html

"Fair use is not merely a nice concept--it is a federal law based on
free speech rights under the First Amendment and is a cornerstone of the
creativity and innovation that is a hallmark of this country. Consumer
rights in the digital age are not frivolous."
- Maura Corbett

 

[Jon]

Thank you for your great help. I agree with your statement, "A better
approach would be to reorganize your start-up programs so that the
prompt doesn't appear in the first place."

However the offending program is already considered "Permitted" by
Defender so there's little I can do. It appears to be a Defender bug I
can't work around.

You usually get that prompt if the particular program is set to 'Run as
administrator'. So you can either remove that from the program's properties
(if it's something you've set yourself, and isn't really necessary), or use
an alternative way to start it up eg as a Scheduled Task.

 

[John]

Thank you again, Jon. That program was set as you suspected. I have changed
that setting and will see how it goes. Strange that a Run as Admin would
cause that type of reaction from defender.

 

[Jon]

Thank you again, Jon. That program was set as you suspected. I have
changed that setting and will see how it goes. Strange that a Run as Admin
would cause that type of reaction from defender.

YW. Yep, it is a bit odd. One of those cases where the error messages don't
really provide many clues as to the partcular issue that's causing them.