I've been struggling for over 8 hours trying to turn my Microsoft Defender Antivirus back on after I foolishly allowed access to a third-party app that seems to have caused some issues. The antivirus options are either greyed out or revert back to 'off' if I attempt to change them. There's also a message stating that only the administrator can make changes, and I've been trying various solutions, including re-downloading Windows while keeping my apps, modifying registry ownership, and disabling inheritance settings in the registry. However, nothing seems to work, and I'm worried that the only resolution might be a factory reset. Would that actually fix the issue, or could I have seriously damaged my PC?
1 Answer
It sounds like you might need to reinstall Windows using a USB stick since you've messed with a lot of settings. A factory reset could work too, but be careful about your data if you choose that route!
Could I wipe everything and do a factory reset without a USB? I don't have one handy right now.