German website Heise has found that a simple registry hack that makes Windows Defender an adware killer. Yesterday Microsoft announced that its new enterprise security products come with a new feature that also stops potentially unwanted software and adware. Using a registry hack it can also be activated for consumers.
After the hack, Windows Defender will defend the system against potentially unwanted software such as adware, toolbars and other third party unwanted bundled software.
The functionality was actually first made available to enterprises. To protect them against unwanted applications, Microsoft added a new opt-in feature to the enterprise solutions System Center Endpoint Protection (SCEP) and Forefront Endpoint Protection (FEP). Combined with Windows Defender these applications are able to block downloading and installing unwanted software.
However Heise has discovered that using a registry hack it's also possible to consumers to get the additional protection. The German website discovered that the adware blocking feature can also be enabled on Windows Defender on home systems. Windows Defender is Microsoft's security solution and available on all systems since Windows 8, it can be considered the successor to Microsoft's Security Essentials.
In a test, with the registry hack enabled on both Windows 10 Home and Pro, Windows Defender indeed started to block unwanted software such as Freemake Video Convertor. To enable the feature you can add the text below to 'defender.reg'. After you open the file the changes are made. You can also download this file (save as), which we've prepared and of which we can confirm it works.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender\MpEngine] "MpEnablePus"=dword:00000001
As always, use at your own risk and make a registry backup before you try this.
