If you are like most people, your antispyware is from another vendor besides Microsoft. If so, Windows Defender should be disabled or uninstalled, depending if you have XP or Vista. Windows Defender which was previously known as Microsoft AntiSpyware is an anti-spyware utility that built-in to Windows Vista (and downloaded to XP) to detect, prevent, remove and quarantine spyware. It is available as a download at no charge for XP.
Make sure your antispyware program is running real-time and is up-to-date.
XP
Just uninstall Windows Defender from the Control Panel > Add Remove Programs.
Vista
Unfortunately there is no clear-cut way to remove or uninstall Windows Defender in Vista. Use the trick and hack below to disable Windows Defender in a way that as is Windows Defender is been uninstalled or removed.
The easiest way to to stop Windows Defender in Vista (since you can’t actually uninstall it) is by disabling and turning it off . Windows Defender provides an graphical user interface (GUI) to easily stop real-time protection checking, and turn off the Windows Defender service.
Note that a lot of guides have asked to disable Windows Defender service via Services in Control Panel and uncheck the startup item in System Configuration (MSConfig) in order to turn off Windows Defender and prevent it from starting up. This is unnecessary, and it’s not a recommended way as any misstep will cause error message (explained below).
Steps to Disable Defender
- Run Windows Defender from Start Menu.
- Click on Tools button.
- Click on Options link under “Tools and Settings” section.
- Scroll down the “Options” page, and uncheck the check boxes of the following two settings:
- Use real-time protection (recommended) under “Real-time protection options”
- Use Windows Defender under “Administrator options”
Note that both options MUST be unchecked for the Windows Defender service in Windows Vista to be completely stopped otherwise only real-time protection is disabled.
5. Click on Save button.
A “Windows Defender is turned off” dialog message will appear, confirming that Windows Defender no longer runs.
In Services of Control Panel, the Windows Defender service is automatically stopped, although the Startup Type is still set to Automatic. Do not try to manually stop and disable the Windows Defender service from Services panel, as it will cause the error message of “Application failed to initialized: 0×800106ba. A problem caused this program’s service to stop. To start the service, restart your computer or search Help and Support for how to start a service manually.”
To re-enable Windows Defender in Vista, run Windows Defender from Start Menu and turn it on again when prompted.
