What is a PUA? Microsoft recently announced that it will add more means to protect against installation of so-called potentially unwanted applications (PUAs) in Windows Defender, but only businesses.
The protection feature for potentially unwanted applications is only available to business customers. If you are already one of the existing Microsoft Enterprise customers, you must opt-in to enable and use PUA protection.
While Microsoft has announced the new feature only for Enterprise editions of Windows 10, it does not protect the feature.
This means that each user (Home or Pro version) can activate and use the feature.
PUA protection updates are built into the cloud and come with Windows Defender updates.
Let's see how you can enable protection for PUA protection in Windows Defender
Microsoft makes no mention of which versions of Windows support PUA protection in Windows Defender. We tested the feature on two Windows 10 Home computers and Windows 10 Pro, and it worked without any problems.
You should add a registry key and preference to the Windows Registry:
Let's see how:
In the Windows 10 search, type regedit and click the first icon to display. The Windows Registry Editor will open.
Confirm the UAC if it appears
Follow the route:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender
Right-click on Windows Defender and select New> Key.
Name the MpEngine key.
Right-click on MpEngine and select New> DWORD (32-bit).
Name the MpEnablePus DWORD value.
Double-click MpEnablePus and enter the 1 value.
Restart your computer.
Once you have restarted your computer, Windows Defender will start blocking potentially unwanted programs (installing and also downloading via Internet Explorer or Edge).
If you want to disable the feature now, set the value in the DWORD registry to 0, or completely delete MpEnablePus.
