Windows Defender Is Disabled or Inactive, This Is a Fix

This updated guide examines Windows Defender Is Disabled or Inactive, This Is a Fix and organizes the essential facts, background, and practical takeaways in clear American English.

However in some cases when opening Windows Defender you receive an error message: "Windows Defender has been turned off, and it is not monitoring your computer ".

This error may be due to the installation of a program, certain antivirus software Windows Defender has been disabled. To fix the above errors, follow the steps below:

1. Open Action Center and check if Windows Defender is enabled.

2. Run services.msc to open Services Manager. Make sure that Windows Defender Service is enabled and set Automatic.

3. Re-register the DLL file.

Run each of the commands below into the Elevated command prompt window, after each command press 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

4. At this point on the screen, Windows Security Center will prompt you to "Check installation" in the Malware Protection section. Your task is to click Turn on now.

An error message will appear on the screen: "There are no definitions available to download for Windows Defender".

In this case it is very likely that the cause of the error is due to WMI repository inappropriate. Restart the WMI repository to fix this error.

Open the Command prompt under Admin, enter the command below and press Enter:

winmgmt / verifyrepository

If you receive the message "WMI repository is not consistent" , run the following command:

winmgmt / salvagerepository

This command will check the identity of the WMI repository and fix the problems. Restart your computer, then try to activate Windows Defender.

If you receive the message "winmgmt / salvagerepository is failed" , ignore the message and rerun the winmgmt / salvagerepository command again.

Refer to some of the following articles:

• How to disable and completely remove Windows Defender?

• Your Windows 10-based computer has a virus, this is a fix

• How to schedule automatic scans for Windows Defender on Windows 8

Good luck!