No, WSA does not disable Windows Defender.  There is no need to as WSA is designed to be compatible with other AV solutions, including WIndows Defender.

 

NOTE: Many WSA users DO manually turn off WIndows Defender.  This is not due to any incompatibilities with WSA, but rather that Windows Defender is simply not very good and many of us feel it is a waste of resources to have it enabled.

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If your running Windows 8.1 YES WSA will turn off Windows Defender as it's full AV but on Windows 7 and lower no it will not and you have to do it manually and it's only an Anti-Spyware. In case you would like to run Windows Defender on Windows 8.1 and if don't mind making adjustments to the Registry you can do this.

 

Windows Defender Tweak if users want to run with WSA on Windows 8 & Windows 8.1



Windows 8.1 detects other AVs in the Action Center and blocks Defender from becoming active.



You can create a value of type DWORD named HideActionCenter (under HKLMSoftwareWRData on 32bit or for 64bit HKLMSoftwareWow6432NodeWRData) set to '1' and reboot and it will prevent Webroot from adding into the Action Center to allow Defender to stay active.

 

Now IMO you don't need Windows Defender as WSA is far Superior so it's up to you if you want to do the above and WE or WEBROOT are not responsible if you access or make mistakes with the registry.

 

Thanks,

 

Daniel 😉

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Thank you Daniel!  

 

As a Windows 7 user, I did not know that on 8.1 it will automatically disable Windows Defender.  I still learn something every day here 🙂

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