Hi Dinobot2 Thanks for your assistance.
How do I turn Defender of, as I have manually turned off Defender, installed Avast. I am still getting Antimalware Service Executable Process.
I am also getting Defender definitions updates.
I am not the smartest tool in the shed. If i set periodic Scanning on this will turn off real time scanning in defender, or is their another way to turn off Windows defender.
On my Win 10 laptop and other win11 Desktop ( I do not have Antimalware Service Executable Process or receive any Defender definitions Updates.
You're conflating Defender's Real Time protection with Defender periodic scans and the other stuff that comes along with it being "enabled" in the background. If you have Avast or another third party virus scan enabled, it
should (and in Avast's case,
does) turn off Defender's real time protection. If you go to the area I mentioned earlier, you should see that Real time protection is off and more importantly can't be turned back on as long as you have Avast installed and running. Real-time protection doesn't have to be on, however, for Windows Defender Antivirus service to run in the background (under the "Antimalware Service Executable" task), as it would still have to run for periodic scans, definitions updates, and other background services such as Tamper protection, Automatic sample submission, etc. That will all be enabled (again, excluding real-time protection) when you have that setting that bob provided a screenshot of.
If you turn that setting
off, whether it's off by default or you have to manually turn it off, it
should shut off Windows Defender antivirus from running at all. There will be no periodic scans, no definitions updates (except for maybe during the once-a-month cumulative Windows updates), etc. I have provided two screenshots below of the virus & threat protection screen alongside my task bar, one without Defender enabled for period scans, and one with it enabled. Notice how when it's turned off, I don't have the Antimalware Service Executable running. Now, I am still running Windows 10 (version 22H2), and you said you're running Windows 11, but I don't believe that should make a difference with this particular setting and process.
So, now, with all of that said and explained (and I apologize if I repeated anything you already knew), is the issue that even with that optional setting turned off, you're still seeing Antimalware Service Executable with Microsoft Defender Antivirus service (after you expand the task) running in the background?