

Open your new AV and confirm that its protection is running. Make sure "Turn on real-time protection" is unchecked.

You can always check via Windows Control Panel or by searching for Defender. Defender should automatically disable itself when another AV comes onboard and is activated. Can I keep McAfee? Can I install an anti-virus application from another vendor? I have Windows 8 (or 10) on my new computer, but McAfee was also preinstalled. I thought that it is not good to run two anti-virus applications.

Thus, if you have Windows 8/8.1 or Windows 10 running on your computer, you already have anti-virus/anti-spyware protection running by default.ġ. Since Windows 8 both of those have been combined into " Defender" and pre-installed as a component of Windows 8/8.1 and 10 operating systems. Windows Defender was an anti-spyware application that could be installed as well. Microsoft's anti-virus, Microsoft Security Essentials, could be manually installed on computers running Windows 7 and earlier.
