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Prevent users from seeing or interacting with the Microsoft Defender Antivirus user interface

  • Article

Applies to:

Platforms

  • Windows

You can use Group Policy to prevent users on endpoints from seeing the Microsoft Defender Antivirus interface. You can also prevent them from pausing scans.

Hide the Microsoft Defender Antivirus interface

In Windows 10, versions 1703, hiding the interface hides Microsoft Defender Antivirus notifications and prevent the Virus & threat protection tile from appearing in the Windows Security app.

With the setting set to Enabled:

The Windows Security without the shield icon and virus and threat protection sections

With the setting set to Disabled or not configured:

The Windows Security with shield icon and threat protection sections

Note

Hiding the interface will also prevent Microsoft Defender Antivirus notifications from appearing on the endpoint. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint notifications will still appear. You can also individually configure the notifications that appear on endpoints

In earlier versions of Windows 10, the setting hides the Windows Defender client interface. If the user attempts to open it, they'll receive a warning that says, "Your system administrator has restricted access to this app."

The warning message when headless mode is enabled in Windows 10, versions earlier than 1703

Use Group Policy to hide the Microsoft Defender Antivirus interface from users

  1. On your Group Policy management machine, open the Group Policy Management Console, right-click the Group Policy Object you want to configure and select Edit.

  2. Using the Group Policy Management Editor go to Computer configuration.

  3. Select Administrative templates.

  4. Expand the tree to Windows components > Microsoft Defender Antivirus > Client interface.

  5. Double-click the Enable headless UI mode setting and set the option to Enabled. Select OK.

See Prevent users from locally modifying policy settings for more options on preventing users from modifying protection on their PCs.

Prevent users from pausing a scan

You can prevent users from pausing scans, which can be helpful to ensure scheduled or on-demand scans aren't interrupted by users.

Note

This setting is not supported on Windows 10.

Use Group Policy to prevent users from pausing a scan

  1. On your Group Policy management machine, open the Group Policy Management Console, right-click the Group Policy Object you want to configure and select Edit.

  2. Using the Group Policy Management Editor go to Computer configuration.

  3. Select Administrative templates.

  4. Expand the tree to Windows components > Microsoft Defender Antivirus > Scan.

  5. Double-click the Allow users to pause scan setting and set the option to Disabled. Select OK.

UI Lockdown mode

Indicates whether to disable UI Lockdown mode. If you specify a value of $True, Microsoft Defender Antivirus disables UI Lockdown mode. If you specify a value of $False or don't specify a value, UI Lockdown mode is enabled.

PS C:\>Set-MpPreference -UILockdown $true

Tip

Do you want to learn more? Engage with the Microsoft Security community in our Tech Community: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Tech Community.

Tip

If you're looking for Antivirus related information for other platforms, see: