Windows Defender AV Management

A variety of tools can enable and manage Windows Defender Antivirus (Defender AV) on devices running Windows 10. Management tasks include deploying (getting software to a device) or enabling software on a device, initial configuring and ongoing management of settings, and monitoring and reporting of the software over time. Some tools may work best for a specific management task. For example, Group Policy (GP) may excel at configuring Defender AV settings but may not be a good tool for monitoring or reporting. Intune and System Center Configuration Manager (CM) have the most capabilities and longest support life cycles.

Some tools, such as Intune or CM, require additional licensing.

The Future Support and Life Cycle score is Directions on Microsoft’s estimate of future Microsoft investment in the tools listed. Although tools such as GP and PowerShell are technically available with all versions of Windows 10, Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) requires an Enterprise or Education E5 edition of Windows 10; therefore, the Windows 10 edition in this chart is set to Enterprise.