Windows Defender is turned off or not working in Windows 11

Windows Defender serves as the first line of defense against malware or spyware that might have affected your computer. Microsoft provides this free anti-malware program to customers using Windows 11/10. It allows end-users to schedule or manually run a quick, full, or custom scan.

However, sometimes, a user may experience issues enabling Windows Defender application in Windows. He may find that his Windows Defender is turned off or not working. Also, if your Windows Defender disables itself automatically – every time you start your Windows computer, or at any time randomly when you are working on your PC, here are a few things you may want to investigate.

This article explains the troubleshooting procedure to resolve the issue.

Windows Defender is turned off or not working in Windows 11

You may receive a message: Windows Defender has been turned off, and it isn’t monitoring your computer.

If you have another antivirus installed, it will disable Windows Defender. But if you have not yet, then you might want to carry out the following troubleshooting steps:

Install the latest Windows Updates
Verify the status of Windows Defender Services
Reinstall any third-party antivirus you may have installed
Run an offline malware scan
Enable Windows Defender via Action Center
Check Defender Service status
Re-register these DLL files
Check Registry setting
Perform consistency check on WMI repository
Reset Windows Security.

1] Install the latest Windows Updates

Check if you have all the latest Windows Updates installed, including having the latest version of Windows Defender and its definitions.

2] Verify the status of Windows Defender Services

Press Win + R, type services.msc to open Services Manager.

Here, ensure Windows Defender Antivirus Service and Windows Security Service are set to Automatic and running.

3] Reinstall any third-party antivirus you may have installed

Did you uninstall any security software recently – especially Norton or McAfee? If so maybe its partial uninstallation is causing issues. Use McAfee Consumer Products Removal Tool or some antivirus removal tool to ensure that you have even removed its remnants.

4] Run an offline malware scan

Have you checked your computer for malware? Or did you just recover from a malware attack? I suggest you download and run a stand-alone portable antivirus scanner and run an offline scan from your USB – or else use an online antivirus scanner service to scan your PC.

5] Enable Windows Defender via Action Center

Open Action Center and see if you can enable Windows Defender.

Read: Windows Defender keeps re-enabling itself on Windows 11

6] Check Defender Service status

Run services.msc to open Services Manager. Ensure that the Windows Defender service is started and set to Automatic.

7] Re-register these DLL files

If Windows Defender Service (WinDefend) or Windows Defender Network Inspection Service (WdNisSvc) of Windows Defender keeps stopping, turning off or could not start,

Re-register the following dll files and see if it helps you. Run each command in an elevated command prompt one after the other and hit Enter:

regsvr32 wuaueng.dll

regsvr32 wucltui.dll

regsvr32 softpub.dll

regsvr32 wintrust.dll

regsvr32 initpki.dll

regsvr32 wups.dll

regsvr32 wuweb.dll

regsvr32 atl.dll

regsvr32 mssip32.dll

You can use our freeware FixWin to reset Windows Defender to default settings.

8] Check Registry setting

Run regedit and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Defender

Here ensure that the value of these DWORDS is 1: DisableAntiSpyware and DisableAntiVirus.

If it is 0, then you will have to use our freeware RegOwnit to take ownership of these Registry keys and then change its value from 0 to 1. RegOwnit allows you to take ownership of a Windows Registry key using Administrator, Home Users, or the current Logged On User account.

9] Perform consistency check on WMI repository

It may also happen that Windows Security Center may prompt you to “Check Settings” for Malware Protection, and when you click the “Turn on now” button, it may show an error that says “There are no new definitions available to download for Windows Defender“.

It may be possible that the issue may have been caused due to an inconsistent WMI repository. Restarting the WMI repository should thus help resolve the issue.

Open Command Prompt as an Administrator. Type the following command and hit Enter:

winmgmt /verifyrepository

If you get a message “WMI repository is not consistent“, run the following command:

winmgmt /salvagerepository

This will perform a consistency check on the WMI repository and resolve the issue. Restart your machine.

Try enabling Windows Defender now.

If you get the following message instead, winmgmt /salvagerepository is failed, ignore this message, and again run “winmgmt /salvagerepository“. This time, it should help.

10] Reset Windows Security

Use Windows Settings to reset Windows Security.

This post titled Unable to turn on Windows Defender offers some additional troubleshooting suggestions, which may also interest you. You may also want to check the Windows Defender error code you receive and see if any resolution is available at Microsoft.

Read this post if your Antivirus protection has expired.

You may also want to check out these posts which help troubleshoot Windows Defender problems: