So, having recently gone through various methods and attempts, I've come to a point where I have discovered the most simplified way of disabling Windows Defender. This is intended as a short guide, along with a bonus power plan tweak. I would suggest doing these as the first things after a clean install of Windows 11 (including the latest 24H2), but can be done at any point. The below also assumer your are using an Administrator account on your Windows computer (which you should be doing if you are not already doing so!).

DISABLING WINDOWS DEFENDER

Firstly, click Start and then type in Registry Editor into the search box and then select Run as administrator. Registry Editor will open. It look strange and complex to the uninitiated, but this is easy, just follow the below and do not be scared!

You will first need to navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender​

Right click on Windows Defender in the left had folder tree view and then select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. A new registry key will appear in the right hand pane, awaiting for you to name it. Type in DisableAntiSpyware as the name and hit Enter. Once that's done, double click on DisableAntiSpyware to open up a box to edit the value. Enter 1 and the Value data and click OK.

You will then need to navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\wscsvc​

Right click on wscsvc in the left hand side folder tree view and click Permissions. Once the Permissions box opens up, select Advanced. Under Owner at the top of the Advanced box that will open up, select Change next to where it says SYSTEM In the Select User or Group box that opens up, type in Administrators in the box under Enter the object name to select (examples): and then click on Check Names and then OK to close this box. This takes you back to the Advanced box, and now you will notice the Owner at the top listed as Administrators, then click OK to close the Advanced box. You are now back in the Permissions box. Here under Group or user names, select Administrators. Then, under Permissions for Administrators, check the Allow box for Full Control. You have now changed the owner of this registry entry and given yourself the necessary permissions to edit they registry entry values.

Once done, with wscsvc selected in the left hand side tree view, double click on Start in the right hand pane displaying the registry entries. Change the Value data to 4 to prevent startup.

You will then need to navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SecurityHealthService​

As above, right click on SecurityHealthService in the left hand side folder tree view and click Permissions. Do the same steps as above to give Administrators permission to edit the registry entries. Once done, with SecurityHealthService selected in the left hand side tree view, double click on Start in the right hand pane displaying the registry entries. Again, change the Value data to 4 to prevent startup.

You are done!

Restart your machine. You will now see Windows Defender doesn't start up at all. You will get a notification pop up with a red cross, nagging you to turn Windows Defender on. Simply click the three dots on this notification to open up the menu and select Turn off all notifications for this. You will then never be nagged again.

Now congratulate yourself. See, I said it was easy

POWER PLAN - ADD ULTIMATE PERFORMANCE PLAN

Simply click on Start, type CMD into the search box, and then select Run as administrator. This will open up Command Prompt as administrator. Copy and paste the below command, as per the screenshot, and then hit Enter. That's it. You can click on Start > All and scroll down to Windows Tools. Then go to your Control Panel > System and Security > Power Options, and under the lower drop-down you will now see Ultimate Performance Plan, where you can activate it and change the settings as desired to unleash your computer highest performance.

powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61​

 

you can use an AI bot and tell him to make one script out of this all, so you can pretty much press a button. I use Ai bots (like coplit , formerly known as bing) to make me all sort of adaptions of windows, and make it turn it into a script which is like a .bat , .reg or .ps1 file, so next windows you can just doubleclick on one or a few of htese thigns and you do not have to think about it. I have like 30 adaptations ive made for windwos that way..Each time I'm a new windows i just doubeclick the stuff and plan to make it turn into one big script that just customizes my windows in 1 click, but unfortunately most AI bots fail with long script and keep hanging halfway, whcih is a hssle to deal with.

 

plenty on github....anyways its better have it removed from win install iso at all

 

The principle is good, but creating .reg or .bat files is beyond me, but someone who knows how to, feel free to make one based on the above.

My one comment would be though that using AI tools, and especially things like CoPilot are things most people who care about their privacy will want to avoid like the plague!

 

Last edited: Jan 15, 2025

or you can use winaero tweaker.

 

I can recommend this utility - https://github.com/ionuttbara/windows-defender-remover

do be aware of confusing not-so-duplicate difference between power PLAN (via "legacy" Control Panel) VS. power MODE (via "modern" Settings app),
just for illustration of Microsoft messy fuckery - https://www.asus.com/support/faq/1044699/
- oh and top of that, there's registry entries and group policy settings not else accesible via either of those above

 

Really nice thread

I would like to ask maybe somebody knows the answer
I have a Ryzen 5600x since 2021 and no matter how many times I nstalled a new Windows 10 when I install the AMD's software which should place the Power Plan settings for the CPU it always fails or correctly it never shows up everything stays the same "Power Saver-Balanced-High"
My second question would be I have 32 GB DDR4 in my PC and no matter how I try to set "Maximum Memory" at the msconfig Advanced Boot setting it immediately resets to 0 I don't understand what's wrong/how to force my settings to accept the max memory to "326670" I don't know the correct amount it always resets to 0 after I click ok...weird

 

I did see that Windows Defender Removes, but I think that's the one it's unclear what exactly it's doing. Also, some of them remove critical elements needed to allow usage of passwords, PIN etc to lock your computer. If you set a password, on next reboot the service is removed by some of these tools and you then can't log into your machine and have to do a System Restore. This is partly why I was looking for a clean, easy solution to disable it all without actually removing it entirely.

And yeah, Microsoft is really messed up with power 'plans' now cos you have two independent settings like you say, where one refreshes over the other to the latest change, but they have different options and is totally unclear.

 

Are you talking about the power option in the new Settings app, or the ones in the old school Control Panel?

 

hence why it's an open script publicly available at github anyone can read through, no shady business

impossible I'm afraid

 

Or you could choose to not have to deal with another app and just edit the registry yourself

 

Creating reg, bat or ps1 files is beyond me to. What i meant is just say what i want or copy paste some tutorial to an ai bot (like let ssay chat-gpt, or copilot -formerly known as bing) and say
'Hey AI bitch bot, make a script that does all of this automatically" and it will generate a code for you and says if you should give it the extension .reg, or .bat or .ps1 and that's it. I really have no idea myself about coding/programming myself either. I just know you can pretty much make these Ai-chatbots make you anything and you just have to tell them what you want and they will make the scripts.
You just have to click 'new file > new txt file , then copy their code in and rename it to blala.bat and that's it. Then you run it as admin and that's it. It's really nothing more than that. Sometimes the scripts dont work and i just say 'hey Ai bot, the code does not work" and it generates a new code that I brainlessly copy and paste in there and it usually works.

 

If you can not login there is free software you can put on an USB stick, boot from the usb stick and it uses software called 'lock pick' that can break into your windows even if you forgotten password/pin or anything and just removes it or resets it. Its really easy once you have tried it once.

I've had technical issues last half years with windows installtion and learned so much and even bought ad new comptuer, yet i keep having issues with windows installations failing..really weird. I must say though that i's windows 10 enteprise IOT, which should contain least shit like telemetry and other nonsense. I should try installing other windows versions, but I do reclal trying it once and gave the same error.

 

Yippee and hurray - finally a life without Windows Defender!!!

Thanks Bunford for the tutorial and the work!!!

 

The power option in the old Control Panel you know "Choose a Power Plan"
And there it shows me "Balanced (recommended)", "High Performace" and "Power Saver"

So only the basic Windows 10 power stuff shows up instead of AMD Ryzen has a CPU driver package which is installing power plan settings for my Ryzen 5600x so instead of showing "Balanced (recommended)" etc...so instead of this it should be like "AMD Ryzen Balanced" etc so basically AMD has it's custom factory power plan settings and no matter what I do I can only see the default windows power plan stuff
Weird

Alright not a big deal I was wondering if you know the solution (maybe AMD's custom settings are worth it)

 

I have found thru messing with this for quite a while that published fixes may provide immediate gratification, but do not prevent the re-enabling of the thing on the next system start-up or connection to the internet. A much simpler but effective method is to first export the original defender reg key (to save in case you have to reinstate it later), then take complete control (security wise) of the entire key (you'll have to disable inherited permissions as well) and mark it with startup=4 (disabled). In addition, send the mspsvc.dll to a RAR file and delete the original. This is the only way I have found that the defender firewall STAYS disabled. Used the same process on the A/V portion of defender as well.

One thing I found most annoying is that in order to force install the microsoft h.265 codec (kyped it from the ms store a while back) the first thing powershell throws in your face is that the "firewall service must be enabled"... go figure... I ended up ash-canning the ms codec and installed libde265 h.265 codecs instead which do the same job without all the microsoft bs.

 

Last edited: Jan 15, 2025

well you cant force ppl to have an easy pc life i guess...
all the reasons ppl come up not to use custom iso are obsolete in the end...
and ppl doing all sorts of tricky stuff like banking and such ,real adresses plus birth date on only one win machine to do all are lost no matter og iso and spy AV .

 

This is what I use:

https://github.com/ionuttbara/windows-defender-remover/releases/tag/release_def_12_8_2 ;-)

 

* AtlasOS (includes a Power Plan)

* Chris Titus Tech Utility (includes a Power Plan)

* Defender Remover

Those will get your machine running smoothly with minimal annoyances. It's up to you how you defend your system against threats, if you even require something like that. Not everyone does. Knowledge is the best defence against threats.

 

I use the GhostSpectre superLite ISO for all my internet facing win10 builds. You have the option to install with or without defender - A/V. There are many options available upon installation. The firewall portion however is retained even with the super-lite version. So while using a lite/superlite ISO can save you much time and reverse engineering there are still some things that have to be dealt with on a piecemeal basis.

I've seen the WinDefender remover thing. Used to use W10Privacy as well. However I have learned from experience that many of the functions of these tools do not work anymore due to the OEM fortifying the code to thwart their functionality. These automated tools can (if you're not careful) break more stuff than they fix. I prefer to use a scaled down ISO and deal with the remaining junk myself. Much easier in the long run if the tools run amok.

About the only tool I do use anymore is the winareotweaker for fixing many of the anomalous gui minutiae. It seems to be well updated and doesn't get left behind by the OEM code hacks.

 

Last edited: Jan 16, 2025