windows defender shut off automatically

[tewitt1949]

I have 8.1 and I happen to notice defender is shut off and I can't turn it back on. Any ideas how to turn it on? I try to turn it on in control center and I get the message which is attached.

[tewitt1949]

Could it have anything to do with PM stopping auto fill the passwords?

[Thehandyman1957]

Could it have anything to do with PM stopping auto fill the passwords?

No, Windows defender is completely unrelated to PM. Windows defender is a operating system based defense software.

PM is a Web Browser and nothing PM in it's normal unhacked operations could ever, nor ever would turn off your
windows security.

I would be looking at a recent update or other security related software instead.

[tewitt1949]

Hi Handyman1957. I have hand to updates on my pc in a long time.

[Thehandyman1957]

I'm not really familiar with windows 8.1 but I did find this thread and it has some steps you might want to take
and see if it might fix your problem.

Windows Defender in Windows 8.1 Will Not Turn On
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/pro ... 97b?auth=1

[Moonraker]

Have you done what the window says and looked in action center.?.i have not used windows for quite a long time and also services may be worth a peak.It is totally unrelated to the browser.

[New Tobin Paradigm]

For the record Windows Defender is just integrated and bundled Security Essentials but slightly more annoying.

[Scribe]

I agree with others that this isn't a PM issue. Any other anti-virus program on your machine is likely to have disabled it, because 2 running together apparently causes conflicts. It's also possible that something you've used before but since uninstalled, may have left a little goodbye present behind in the Registry - I had this when Avast disabled Defender for me, although that was in Win7 which is a different Defender altogether! If you HAVE used another AV program, you might be able to get advice about that from their forum etc.

Another possibility is that malware has disabled it. There's a few links in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tr ... ed-malware

[riiis]

I have 8.1 and I happen to notice defender is shut off and I can't turn it back on.

The same thing happened to me when my Avast AntiVirus updated to a newer version, several months ago. I was using Windows Defender only as a secondary scanner, anyway, not in real-time. So, I stuck with Avast AntiVirus in Windows 7. However, I uninstalled Avast AntiVirus in my Windows 10 computers (where defender has more features than in Windows 7), and was able to turn Windows Defender promptly back on.

[rabnbeinn]

I'm running Norton on a 8.1 machine and Norton/or system does indeed shut down defender. Shut down Norton and defender is available again.

[dark_moon]

Sounds Malware stop Defender. Is the service enabled? Or can you start it?
Type services @ Windows startmenu and see how the status for Windows Defender is.

Also did you install any other security related program?

[tewitt1949]

I checked services and it says defender is running and automatic. i have n ever had any other anti virus on this machine.

[Moonchild]

Moved to the general discussion board because this has nothing to do with Pale Moon.