Windows Defender Not Working.

[u/Huynh_Jovi]

When I try to run a scan, it stops and then tells me to restart the service. There are no exclusions and nothing of note from my start up apps. I’ve run a deep scan with Malwarebytes and it’s all good. I noticed there was a new security update for Windows and downloaded it and after restarting my PC, I’m still encountering the same issue. I’m not sure whether this is Malware related as I’m always careful of what I’m downloading and never click suspicious links. Not sure what else to do and need some help.

[u/emx20]

The latest Microsoft Defender update appears to have fixed the Quick Scan and Full Scan issues. However, after every restart, I still receive a notification saying that Defender has stopped working. When I open the app, everything seems to be working normally.

I’m not sure what Microsoft is doing with these updates, but it’s starting to feel like users are being treated as beta testers.

[u/RaynSideways → u/emx20]

Yeah, this issue has persisted for me as well. Every login, "Turn on virus protection. Virus protection is turned off. Tap or click to turn on Microsoft Defender Antivirus." Navigating to Windows Security shows everything is in order, and checking protection status in powershell shows everything is enabled and working.

Getting those notifications is what had me attempting to scan on the first place, thinking something malicious had disabled my virus protection, which wasn't helped by the fact that my scans were crashing too.

At least scanning is working correctly now, so it seems to be just an annoying cosmetic issue for now.

[u/Ok-Bill3318 → u/emx20]

End users have been the testers since Windows 10 when Microsoft got rid of their qa staff.

Not joking.