How to Create a Bootable Offline Version of Windows Defender

How to Create a Bootable Offline Version of Windows Defender

We’ve shown you many methods of removing viruses over the years, but now Microsoft has released a stand-alone version of Windows Defender, their own anti-malware application. Here’s how to make a bootable USB to scan for viruses.

We should point out that you can also scan your PC with a BitDefender boot disk, a Kapersky boot disk, an Avira boot disk, or even an Ubuntu Live CD, but this is one more tool to add into your toolkit.

Note: Windows Defender Offline is still in beta, proceed at your own risk.

Creating a Bootable USB

Head over to this website and download the latest version of Windows Defender Offline that matches your current system architecture.

Once the download has completed, double click on the package to get started.

When the Windows Defender Offline wizard starts, click next to continue

After you have accepted the license terms, you will be asked which type of media you will installing Windows Defender on, at this point choose to create a bootable USB.

Note: Please make sure that your USB does not have Bit-Locker encryption on it, as this will not work.

We are warned that our USB will need to be formatted before we continue, this means all the data on our USB will be lost, if this is ok click next.

Now the Definitions and files needed to make a USB bootable version of Windows Defender will be downloaded, and the USB will be created.

When Windows has finished creating the USB, you will be notified, along with further instructions.

Now the only thing that’s left to do, is boot an infected PC from the USB and initiate a scan, which is exactly the same as if you were to do it from within Windows. If you wanted you could also create a bootable CD\DVD, or even create an ISO file which can later be burned to disk. Regardless of the media you use to create your installation, this should definitely be added to your PC toolbox.