What new wizardry is this, Redmond? Microsoft Defender, the built-in antivirus tool that comes bunded with Windows 10 is one of the finest ones around when it comes to protection against threats.
It truly is one of the more advanced security products on the market.
Comes as no surprise then that more and more users decided to stick with Microsoft Defender these days, as the native protection on offer is enough for them to deploy a third-party solution or even change the default settings.
Speaking of which, this is exactly what Microsoft has done.
As noted, the software titan has done away with the option of disabling Microsoft Defender via a registry edit. There company had not provided the ability to turn off the antivirus using the Settings app, but it has taken away this other choice too.
The DisableAntiSpyware key was the one that IT administrators could used to shut down Microsoft Defender on their systems.
But as Redmond makes it known in its documentation, this setting is discontinued and will be ignored on client devices as of the August 2020 update to Microsoft Defender Antivirus. Version 4.18.2007.8 so to speak.
Quite a surprising move, as millions of users relied on this registry hack to disable Microsoft Defender in order to run their own third-party antivirus solution on their PCs.
Luckily, using programs like Defender Control still works for now, but this definitely is a stealth move from Microsoft.
