[How To] Disable Windows Defender Security Center In Windows 10

Windows 10 comes with primary antivirus known as Windows Defender. Windows Defender is the successor of Microsoft Security Essentials. However, with Windows 10 V1703 (Creators Update), Microsoft bundled this antivirus into Windows Defender Security Center app. The Windows team has added additional settings to the app, there were not available in the earlier present Desktop app.

Microsoft is improving the Windows Defender Security Center app version by version. In the next version, i.e. V1709, Microsoft allowed the app to show information from third-party security suites. Also this new app is capable of delivering ransomware protection along with a safe authentication for Windows Hello. The app manages things automatically when you first time start your Windows 10 V1703+ system. You don’t need to be security expert to configure the app.

There might be instances when you may need to disable this app. If this is your requirement, then this article will show you how to disable Windows Defender Security Center app in Windows 10.

How To Disable Windows Defender Security Center In Windows 10

1. Press + R and put regedit in Run dialog box to open Registry Editor (if you’re not familiar with Registry Editor, then click here). Click OK.

2. In left pane of Registry Editor window, navigate to following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SecurityHealthService

3. In the right pane of SecurityHealthService registry key, look for the registry DWORD (REG_SZ) named Start. It must be having its Data set to 2. Double click on this DWORD to modify its Value data:

4. Finally, set the Value data as 4 and click OK. Close the Registry Editor and reboot the machine to make changes effective.

To re-enable the app later, simply restore 2 as Value data for Start registry DWORD we configured in step 4 above.

That’s it!