Can you remove/delete Windows Defender

Have a Win 7 Pro 64bit system. Started to get a disabled root\multifunction\0000 error in system health/performance about the time Windows Defender updated a week or so ago. Web seach indicates that Defender may be the culprit.

Not visable in main Device Manager window but does show up under view/hidden in Device Manager

Can I remove the Windows Defender program/setup from my system without issues to verify that's the problem.

I use another full Internet security/AV suite and didn't even know Windows Defender was on my sytem until recently.

Thanks...Tim

Yes, you can turn it off.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/6397-windows-defender-turn-off.html

Yes it can be turned off but it cannot be removed

Hi Tim...as it looks you can't really uninstall Defender in se7en (there was a way in Vista via running
msiexec /uninstall windowsdefender.msi /quiet /log uninstall.log
from the Admin console. However you can disable it (hope that'll save your purposes)
Start Defender and change those 2 settings under Tools/Options

and

You'll get a message that Windows Defender is turned off
To turn it back on just run Defender again...it'll ask for it

-DG

Thanks guys...it has been disabled all the time...just since the last "update" for Defender have I had a phantom "device is disabled" error...seems to be a common problem and seems to be associated with Defender and the last "update" that has caused the issue...at least from the latest Google search

Seems also to be unaimous that in Win 7 you can not delete it from the system...next plan is to check Windows Update history and see if I can uninstall the "update" from there ?

Thanks

You Can't Delete It But You Can Turn If Off Or Disable It