Allow antimalware service to startup with normal priority
- Policy ID
- AllowFastServiceStartup
- Scope
- Computer Configuration
- Supported on
- At least Windows Server 2012, Windows 8 or Windows RT
- Source
- Administrative Templates (.admx) for Windows 11 2026 Update (26H2) (version 1.0)
- Category
- Windows Components › Microsoft Defender Antivirus
Description
This policy setting controls the load priority for the antimalware service. Increasing the load priority will allow for faster service startup, but may impact performance.
If you enable or do not configure this setting, the antimalware service will load as a normal priority task.
If you disable this setting, the antimalware service will load as a low priority task.
Registry
ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
- AllowFastServiceStartupREG_DWORD