How To Turn On Or Off Windows Defender Real Time Protection In Windows 10

Windows Defender is the default antivirus program in Windows 10. As many of you know, although it offers basic security, users who know how to stay away from antivirus and other threats with the help of best practices, use Defender for protecting their Windows operating system as well as data.

At times, in order to run a program or script without any errors, you might need to temporarily turn off or disable Windows 10’s Defender.

In this guide, we will show you how to turn on or off Windows Defender real-time protection in Windows 10.

Please note that turning off real-time protection will not turn off Windows Defender permanently. If Windows 10 finds that the real-time protection has been turned off for a while, it automatically turns on Windows Defender real-time protection. So if you want to disable Windows Defender forever, please refer to our how to disable Windows Defender permanently in Windows 10 guide.

WARNING: Don’t turn off the real-time protection unless you know what you’re doing. And you don’t need to manually turn off Defender before installing a third-party antivirus like Avast Antivirus. The setup of third-party antivirus takes care of that.

Method 1 – Turn on or off Defender real-time protection via Settings

Method 2 – Enable or disable real-time protection via Group Policy

Method 1 of 2

Enable or disable Windows Defender real-time protection Via Settings

Step 1: Open Settings app. There are many ways to open the Settings app in Windows 10. You can either click on the Settings icon on the Start menu or use Windows + I keyboard shortcut to quickly launch Settings.

Step 2: Click Update and security (Windows Update, recovery, backup).

Step 3: Click Windows Defender.

Step 4: Finally, turn off the option titled Real-time protection to disable the real-time protection.

Soon after you turn off the real-time protection, you will see Turn on virus protection notification.

Method 2 of 2

Enable or disable real-time protection via Group Policy

Note that Group Policy Editor is not available in Windows 10 Home edition, meaning this method works only on Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise editions. If you’re on the Home edition, please follow the directions in Method 1.

Step 1: Type Edit Group Policy in Start menu search box and then press Enter key to open Local Group Policy Editor.

Tip: You can also type Gpedit.msc in Start menu search box or Run command box followed by enter key to launch Group Policy Editor.

Step 2: Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Defender > Real-time Protection.

Step 3: On the right-side look for the policy titled Turn off real-time protection and double-click on the same to open its properties.

Step 4: Select Enabled option to turn off the policy. Click Apply button.

NOTE: To enable the real-time protection, select Not Configured or disable option before clicking Apply button.