Error Message is shown during startup of Windows Defender

[JUSTICE]

I am using Windows 7 home 64-bit version edition. I have Avast anti-virus installed on my system. Whenever I try to enable the windows defender, an error message saying “This program is blocked by group policy. For more information contact your system administrator. (Error code: 0x800704ec)". I don’t know what to do; I think my computer is at risk of being harmed by virus or other malicious programs. Any help will be appreciated.

[Techguru01]

I suggest you to open Local Group Policy Editor. To do this, type gpedit.msc in command prompt. This will open computer configuration. In this, you will find a tab by name called ‘Administrative Templates’. Once in Administrative templates go in Windows components and select Windows defender. Now you will get a list of settings that you need to work on. See if you can find anything related to your problem there.

[jesse]

You can try disabling all the anti-viruse, spywares and firewalls on your PC. If you have any unofficial 3rd party security applications, then uninstall it. After doing this, reboot your computer and again try to enable Windows defender. The issue you are facing might be caused due to conflict of security policies set by different security applications. They must be trying to override or bypass each other’s policies creating a mess for you.

[Hollyn]

Another way of solving this issue is by deleting all the group policy registry keys from registry of your system. Click on Run and type ‘regedit’. This will open registry editor. Once in registry editor, find the key by name [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft]. Find Microsoft in this section an delete it. Now you need to delete Microsoft from the given directories, [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy Objects]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies]
If some key doesn’t exist then ignore it and don’t try finding it. Exit the registry and reboot your PC.

[DanielaA]

You can try downloading updates for Windows which are related to Windows Defender. You cannot uninstall or reinstall Windows defender as it is part of Windows. If you think there is any problem with it, you can repair it using disk of Windows.

[QUENBY]

You can actually run Windows defender with the antivirus you mentioned enabled. You need to edit registry for it. Go in the registry by typing ‘regedit’ in run. Find the key [hkey_local_machine\software\policies\microsoft\windows defender]. Right click on it and go in modify. There set the data value to zero. Now go in Control Panel and activate the Windows Defender. You will again get the same error message, cancel it and you will see an active Windows Defender. Don’t change anything else in the registry as it might put your computer at risk. Restart your system and you are good to go.