Windows Defender is the Windows 10 antivirus, pre-installed and preconfigured, which is automatically activated on the PC making the installation of an antivirus program superfluous. Windows Defender is absolutely an antivirus that lives up to the situation, considered among the best in the charts and updated by Microsoft in every new version of Windows 10 with new security settings.
Windows Defender works silently on the PC, with real-time protection that acts in the background, continuously scanning new files generated by programs or downloaded from the internet. It never performs full system scans while using the PC, but only at times when no activity is detected, when we leave the computer on without doing anything. Thus the Windows 10 antivirus should not slow down your computer when it is working.
Although this configuration proves to be quite efficient, it is still possible to configure Windows Defender to consume less CPU during its scans so that it never occupies all the computer's processing power, always leaving resources for other activities. This can be useful in cases where you often leave your PC to download or work with programs that require a lot of resources, on computers with slow hard disk and without SSD, on older PCs and also on computers that are not turned on every day, to ensure that at startup you don't have to wait for the antivirus to do all the checks.
Without needing to disable Windows Defender on PC and without having to disable the real-time protection option, Microsoft has documented a method to limit Windows Defender CPU usage that only requires you to run a small command in PowerShell, obviously with rights of administrator.
The command changes the percentage of the total CPU processing power used by Windows Defender antivirus, with a customized value.
By default, Windows Defender can use up to 50% of the CPU, this value can therefore be limited to 20% or even 10% (you cannot put 0) if you want to make sure that the antivirus can never prevent running other programs due to CPU overhead.
From the Start menu, search for PowerShell and then click on it with the right mouse button to run it with administrator rights. In Powershell, write the following command and replace the number at the end with the percentage of maximum CPU usage that you want to dedicate to Windows Defender.
Set-MpPreference -ScanAvgCPULoadFactor 20
The restriction is applied when Windows Defender performs a full scan and when the antivirus runs its checks during periods of system inactivity. By devoting less CPU power to antivirus, Windows Defender scans may last longer, but there will be no impact on protecting Windows 10 from malware and viruses. Basically, if Windows Defender slows down your PC too much using too much CPU, this is the best method to improve the situation, without having to completely disable the antivirus of Windows 10 and its real-time protection.
READ ALSO: Configure the antivirus so that it does not slow down the PC during scans and checks
Windows Defender works silently on the PC, with real-time protection that acts in the background, continuously scanning new files generated by programs or downloaded from the internet. It never performs full system scans while using the PC, but only at times when no activity is detected, when we leave the computer on without doing anything. Thus the Windows 10 antivirus should not slow down your computer when it is working.
Although this configuration proves to be quite efficient, it is still possible to configure Windows Defender to consume less CPU during its scans so that it never occupies all the computer's processing power, always leaving resources for other activities. This can be useful in cases where you often leave your PC to download or work with programs that require a lot of resources, on computers with slow hard disk and without SSD, on older PCs and also on computers that are not turned on every day, to ensure that at startup you don't have to wait for the antivirus to do all the checks.
Without needing to disable Windows Defender on PC and without having to disable the real-time protection option, Microsoft has documented a method to limit Windows Defender CPU usage that only requires you to run a small command in PowerShell, obviously with rights of administrator.
The command changes the percentage of the total CPU processing power used by Windows Defender antivirus, with a customized value.
By default, Windows Defender can use up to 50% of the CPU, this value can therefore be limited to 20% or even 10% (you cannot put 0) if you want to make sure that the antivirus can never prevent running other programs due to CPU overhead.
From the Start menu, search for PowerShell and then click on it with the right mouse button to run it with administrator rights. In Powershell, write the following command and replace the number at the end with the percentage of maximum CPU usage that you want to dedicate to Windows Defender.
Set-MpPreference -ScanAvgCPULoadFactor 20
The restriction is applied when Windows Defender performs a full scan and when the antivirus runs its checks during periods of system inactivity. By devoting less CPU power to antivirus, Windows Defender scans may last longer, but there will be no impact on protecting Windows 10 from malware and viruses. Basically, if Windows Defender slows down your PC too much using too much CPU, this is the best method to improve the situation, without having to completely disable the antivirus of Windows 10 and its real-time protection.
READ ALSO: Configure the antivirus so that it does not slow down the PC during scans and checks
