Windows Defender (installed, Vista, working, Microsoft)

[johnny come lately]

Can a computer run properly if Windows Defender does not initialize?


I have Vista with Microsoft Essentials, and Malwarebyte's installed, do I need Windows Defender, if these other two are working fine?

For sometime now, I have suspected that Windows Defender was not operating in my system. When I go to the Management Console it shows as "automatic." But, when I check the Control Panel, it shows as being Off. Are all of these compatible?

[EscapeCalifornia]

Even when running, I've never seen Defender actually defend against anything. In short, its useless. MS Security Essentials automatically disables Defender when you install it. The free version of Malwarebytes doesn't do any realtime scanning so its safe to have along with Security Essentials. Just manually update and scan as needed.