How to Prevent Windows Defender from Deleting EXE Files

As many of you have known for a long time, Windows Defender is the antivirus that Windows 10 integrates by default. Therefore, those who do not want to use third-party security solutions, here they will have a good solution integrated into the system itself.

It is worth mentioning that for those who decide to use it, they should know that this software is always working. In fact, it is responsible for scanning the system when we leave it idle. To give us an idea, the antivirus scans the system approximately twice a week, all in order to ensure that it does not contain malicious code. But that doesn’t mean it’s turned off or disabled outside of those scan periods.

Prevent Windows Defender from Deleting EXE Files

Windows Defender, as we mentioned, is always working and alerts in the background. Thus, it not only scans new system files, but also proactively removes anything it deems malicious. This means that if we download an executable file that the antivirus considers to be malicious , it will delete it. In fact, it does this even before we can open File Explorer at its download location.

Be careful when changing Windows Defender parameters

Of course, this is not always the most recommended, since these antivirus programs have a certain margin of error, which is known as false positives. That is why in certain cases, especially among advanced users, it is interesting to deactivate this functionality. So, next we are going to show you how to prevent Windows Defender from deleting an executable file by itself.

Windows Defender Configuración

We should know that this security application marks files that it believes are dangerous and should not be allowed to run on the system. It is rare that you get a false positive, but it can happen at any time. At the same time, we must also know that we are at great risk when running an application that Windows Defender has marked.

But it may be the case that we know the source, and we know for sure that it is not malicious. Otherwise, when executing some type of malware in Windows, we may encounter a serious security-related problem.

Prevent Windows Defender from deleting executables

All executable files that Windows Defender marks are originally quarantined, and are then removed from the system . To allow a quarantined file to run on the system, the first thing to do is open Windows Defender. We do this from Settings / Update and Security / Windows Security. For those who do not know, we can access the Configuration application with the Win + I key combination. After this we click on Open Windows security and go to Antivirus and threat protection.

Protección antivirus

Once in this section, we click on the Protection History section that we will see in Current threats. Here we will find a list of all the threats that Windows Defender has blocked so far.

Historial de protección Defender

The list that we will see on screen does not really reveal much except the date and time the threat was detected and blocked, as well as the severity of it. For more information, we have to click on the drop down menu next to each entry. Of course, at this point we will have to authenticate ourselves with the system administrator user to proceed, if necessary.

Amenaza detectada Defender

After authenticating with the administrator user credentials, we find much more details about the threat that has been blocked . We will see what Windows Defender did to it, that is, it quarantined or removed it. We will also see the reason why it was marked, what threat was detected and what file it had. Therefore, to allow the file in question to run, we open the Actions drop-down list and select the option Allow on device.

Malware Defender

We may have to re- download the file and this time Windows Defender will not automatically block or delete it, with the risks that this could entail.