The Difficulty to Remove Windows Defender and the Potentional Risks

andrew129260 · Aug 6, 2025

Since you mentioned the new battlefield game, keep in mind that windows security features are going to be required to be enabled and functional in your windows install for anticheat purposes.

Leave defender alone and leave it enabled. You will need secure boot and tpm as well to be enabled. These requirements are going to start being forced with new games on pc. As they should be imho.

Call of duty just announced it will be required as well today

Dru2 said:
That doesn't make him an expert, just a tweaker with an opinion. Zero need to "remove" Defender unless you want a less secure system.

Aint that the truth. The amount of tech youtubers I see with bad info is way too high. Sometimes with millions of subs.

KevTech · Aug 6, 2025

A lot of AV do not like what that file does.

VirusTotal

www.virustotal.com

garlin · Aug 6, 2025

Most AV vendors don't like any of ionutbarra's projects. He bundles PowerRun.exe as a payload inside his EXE, instead of trying to figure out the TI escalation for himself.

Marcus Vinicus · Aug 6, 2025

My approach to this as a user of Bitdefender Total Security for quite a while now is to follow Bitdefender's advice which is leave Windows Defender disabled but not deleted. On my desktop PC two Defender related services/apps are there but only using a very small amount of ram. I have 64GB of ram, so it isn't an issue for me. In this state it isn't using any CPU resources.

Note: Other leading AV software developers may have a different approach.

Should I Turn Off Windows Defender if I Have Bitdefender? A Comprehensive Analysis

In recent years, cybersecurity has become a pressing concern for individuals and organizations alike. With the increasing prevalence of cyber threats and

thetechylife.com

TairikuOkami · Aug 7, 2025

KevTech said:
Not sure why anyone would worry about this when they have 32GB of memory.

On every single PC I had/have, Defender caused a noticeable slow down. Till I disable it from running, Windows/Explorer is unusable.

cheaterslick · Aug 7, 2025

Vsynced said:
Well, duh. Good job on missing the entire point for bringing it up.

But you keep bringing up Linux. That was his point. This is about Windows 11 24H2.

RazorKat83 · Aug 7, 2025

I don't think it can be completely removed, but it can be completely disabled

garlin · Aug 7, 2025

JAM83 said:
I don't think it can be completely removed, but it can be completely disabled

Defender can be completely removed. But some methods will end up breaking Windows Update. If you want to retain the ability to install updates, then disabling Defender services is the way to go.

RazorKat83 · Aug 7, 2025

garlin said:
Defender can be completely removed. But some methods will end up breaking Windows Update. If you want to retain the ability to install updates, then disabling Defender services is the way to go.

Yeah I just completely disable it. I probably could get by with not using Windows Updates, as I haven't in 3 or 4 months when I installed X-Lite. I'm currently still using it. If you can give me a guide to uninstall Defender, I can always save the directions in a notepad.

andrew129260 · Aug 7, 2025

TairikuOkami said:
On every single PC I had/have, Defender caused a noticeable slow down. Till I disable it from running, Windows/Explorer is unusable.

thats so strange to me. Explorer is just fine for me.

TraderGary · Aug 7, 2025

andrew129260 said:
thats so strange to me. Explorer is just fine for me.

I've used Defender with Windows 11 for the past four years and there's no perceptible slowdown here. Windows Explorer works fine for me too.

RazorKat83 · Aug 7, 2025

TairikuOkami said:
On every single PC I had/have, Defender caused a noticeable slow down. Till I disable it from running, Windows/Explorer is unusable.

It's also a RAM Hog too. That's why I disable it. I use MBAM, but I don't have it running 100% of the time.

TraderGary · Aug 7, 2025

JAM83 said:
It's also a RAM Hog too. That's why I disable it. I use MBAM, but I don't have it running 100% of the time.

Typical Defender Memory Usage

Idle or background state: Around 100–200 MB of RAM
During active scans: Can spike to 500 MB–2 GB or more, especially during full system scans or when scanning large files

My system has 32GB of memory, so I'm not concerned about Defender's minimal use of RAM.

Marcus Vinicus · Aug 7, 2025

On my desktop system with 64gb of ram BitdefenderTotal Security when idling or doing very little uses about 1.2gb of ram, close to 2% of total memory. I used to run Defender on my laptop but it didn't slow the system down.

RazorKat83 · Aug 7, 2025

TraderGary said:
Typical Defender Memory Usage

Idle or background state: Around 100–200 MB of RAM

During active scans: Can spike to 500 MB–2 GB or more, especially during full system scans or when scanning large files

My system has 32GB of memory, so I'm not concerned about Defender's minimal use of RAM.

I still don't like it. . I have 32GB of RAM. I'm only using about 7GB at the moment. . I'd rather have more than enough. . LOL

oldschool · Aug 7, 2025

PvtJohnTowle said:
Is there any downside to having Windows Defender remain on my system with real time scanning off?

Why? If real time scanning is off, you are without protection. Windows Defender has a very good reputation with gamers. Your machine has good specs.

OTOH, if you really despise it for some reason, install Panda Free AV. It's like having no AV at all

: very light resource consumption, and the worst protection possible.

Marcus Vinicus · Aug 8, 2025

Check in PowerShell the status of services and filter drivers for Microsoft Defender Antivirus by using the following command:

Code:

gsv WinDefend, WdBoot, WdFilter, WdNisSvc, WdNisDrv | ft -auto DisplayName, Name, StartType, Status

defender services and drivers status.webp

Microsoft Defender Antivirus and non-Microsoft antivirus/antimalware solutions Antivirus protection without Defender for Endpoint - Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Microsoft Defender Antivirus and non-Microsoft antivirus/antimalware solutions Antivirus protection without Defender for Endpoint

learn.microsoft.com

hdmi · Aug 9, 2025

You can temporarily prevent Defender from scanning any files or folders on any drive without actually disabling Defender. That includes:

Real-time protection
Scheduled scans
On-demand scans

• To disable Defender scanning on all drives, run this command as an administrator:

%windir%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "$p = (Get-MpPreference).ExclusionPath; ([char[]](65..90) | Where-Object { "$_`:\" -notin $p } | Tee-Object -FilePath "$env:UserProfile\Desktop\Defender_exclusions.txt").ForEach{ Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath "$_`:\" }"

This will also create a text file Defender_exclusions.txt on your Desktop (or overwrites the file if it already exists) with a list of drive letters in it. You can modify this filepath if that's what you prefer, but remember to also modify it in the other command if you do (see below). The purpose of this text file is to be able to later re-enable scanning on those specific drives that, prior to running the command, had the scanning enabled on them.

• To re-enable scanning on those specific drives, run this command as an administrator:

%windir%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "(Get-Content -Path "$env:UserProfile\Desktop\Defender_exclusions.txt").ForEach{ Remove-MpPreference -ExclusionPath "$_`:\" }"

KevTech · Aug 9, 2025

Marcus Vinicus said:
Check in PowerShell the status of services and filter drivers for Microsoft Defender Antivirus by using the following command

I use Eset and all are stopped as they should be.

PvtJohnTowle · Aug 10, 2025

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> gsv WinDefend, WdBoot, WdFilter, WdNisSvc, WdNisDrv | ft -auto DisplayName, Name, StartType, Status

DisplayName Name StartType Status
----------- ---- --------- ------
Microsoft Defender Antivirus Boot Driver WdBoot Boot Stopped
Microsoft Defender Antivirus Mini-Filter Driver WdFilter Boot Running
Microsoft Defender Antivirus Network Inspection System Driver WdNisDrv Manual Stopped
Microsoft Defender Antivirus Network Inspection Service WdNisSvc Manual Stopped
Microsoft Defender Antivirus Service WinDefend Automatic Running

The Difficulty to Remove Windows Defender and the Potentional Risks

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