securitysettings300

Last updated: 11/05/20

Applies to: Windows 10, 8.1 & 8

You probably have heard how important it is to have decent anti-virus and other software running on your PC. Without it, you’re putting your PC at risk.

And Windows 10 actually comes with some (called “Windows Security”, which is based on what used to be called Microsoft Defender), so you don’t even have to choose one and install it – you can just make sure it’s already turned on and set up right.

Some computer manufacturers put a different make of security software on – you might find you have Norton, McAfee, Kaspersky or Avast… or one of the other ones. That’s fine, too.

By the way, you might be wondering why you’ll hear people talk about “anti-virus software” and “security software” – are they the same thing?  Well, technically not quite. Security software usually includes anti-virus software, but also protects against other risks as well. Nowadays you don’t really get one that only protects against viruses, so they’re all fully-blown security software. But sometimes people say “anti-virus software” just out of force of habit. So you don’t really need to worry about the difference any more.

How to check that yours is turned on

There are several ways to do it. I think the easiest is to click on the start menu and the type in security. You should get a shortlist of things it thinks you might have meant – click or tap on the one labelled “Windows Security” (or if you’re using Windows 8 “security and maintenance”).

In Windows 10, you should get a screen a bit like this:

The Windows 8/8.1 screen will look more like this one:
 securitysettings2
You want to check that each of the settings has a GREEN TICK next to it, or says either “on”, “OK” or “No action needed” next to it.

If there’s a problem with anything, there should be a link saying “click to fix” – click on that and it should let you turn that feature on.

The other thing you might find is if you have, say, McAfee that was put on your PC before you bought it, with a time-limited licence and the time has run out. So it might say expired or words to that effect.

Now some security programs will carry on working at a basic level even after the licence has run out, but if it says it’s not running, you have two choices. You can either buy another year’s licence for McAfee (or whatever the program is on yours) or you can remove it from your computer and go back to the one that Microsoft included. That one isn’t time limited and you don’t have to pay for it – it’s the one I have on my home PC.

To pay for another year’s licence for McAfee (or one of the others) you usually need to find that program in the start menu and start it up. It’ll usually then give you a link to buy the licence. (I say usually because they all work slightly differently – but they try to make it as easy as possible because, after all, they want you to buy it!)

If you want to get rid of it to go back to Windows Security, then you need to go into settings (it has a symbol like a cogwheel) in the start menu and search for “Apps and features”. Find the particular brand of security software, click on it and then click on uninstall.

Once it’s done (it might take a while and might need to restart the PC), go back into the security settings. Nine times out of ten it will have already turned Windows Security back on automatically but if not, you can turn it back on from there by clicking on the message or link saying it’s not turned on.

Once all that’s done (or if you checked and it was already turned on – and for most people it already will be), then you can sit back, confident that your computer is being protected from all the nasties out there.

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