Windows Defender and Sophos

[petben]

Hello, we use Sophos AV on our windows 10 workstations and 2016 servers, does this completely replace the need for Windows defender and hence I should disable it? There's a GPO setting "Turn off Windows Defender Antivirus". I imagine it doesn't like 2 AV things running at the same time, although servers have Sophos on-access disabled.

 

Thanks

[ShellfishClive]

These days having an Anti-Virus on top of Windows Defender isn't a huge deal, I think issues start to arise when you install two third party AVs. You could test this if you had the time by running both at the same time to see if it slows machines down or what not.

 

The "biggest" problem you most likely face is that, if they both detect malicous files on a machine they will both report back, I havn't used Sophos but I assume it reports back to a central service somewhere, if that isn't the case you should be fine. Windows Defender is pretty dormant when it's running.

[Arthur]

Windows Defender will turn itself off automatically when you install third-party AV (or enter passive mode).

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-defender-antivirus/windows-defender-antivirus-compatibility

 

I wouldn't touch the GPO because if your Sophos AV ever gets uninstalled for some reason, you will not have any protection at all.

Edited July 16, 2018 by Arthur