Resolved Group policy turned Windows Defender off?!

I went to update Windows Defender manually as it had not shown an update in a very long time. When I tried to update it I got a message that Defender was turned off under group policy and I could not update it. I can't even get into Defender as it shows as not available. I don't know how to get into group policy as it does not show on my Control Panel entries. How do I get Defender back online? Update...I went and started tinkering around and found what appears to be the Windows Defender settings. I will enable or disable as needed and see if it is online then. The settings panel worked and Windows Defender is operational again.

 

Do understand that by design, Microsoft Defender (formally called Windows Defender) will automatically disable itself whenever a 3rd party anti-malware solution is installed. This is because Microsoft knows that many users prefer to use an alternative security solution, so they designed Defender to gracefully step out of the way whenever one of those 3rd party solutions registers itself with Windows Security Center.

So if you installed Malwarebytes, for example, that would have disabled Microsoft Defender.

I used Malwarebytes as my example because as it goes, unlike some other alternative solutions, Malwarebytes and Microsoft Defender play very well together without causing conflicts and hogging resources. This is a good thing. So for those, like me, that use Microsoft Defender and the Premium version of Malwarebytes (the free does not have a full time component), you can tell Malwarebytes to "not" register itself.

This is easily done by opening the Malwarebytes control panel, clicking on the settings "gear" icon in the upper right, and selecting the "Security" tab. Then scroll down to Windows Security Center and ensure the slider tab for "Always register Malwarebytes in the Windows Security Center" is set to "Off".

I mention all this because if you never installed a 3rd party anti-malware solution, Defender should NOT have been disabled in Group policy. And if that is the case, I would urge you to scan with a secondary scanner just to make sure your system is clean. And Malwarebytes would be a good choice for that, though certainly there are other viable options too. Point being, everyone should have a secondary scanner, regardless their primary, just to make sure they, the user and ALWAYS weakest link, or their primary did not let something malicious slip by.