‘Turn on virus protection’ keeps popping up in Windows 11

If 'Turn on Virus protection' keeps popping up in Windows 11 and you've all the protection already enabled, then this could be a false alert.

Kapil Arya
11x Microsoft MVP · Admin
2 min read
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If you’re on Windows 11, and keep getting the Turn on virus protection notifications, this article is for you. When the Virus protection is actually turned off, these notifications are expected. But, when you have everything turned on in window security, still if you are receiving these notifications, you might be concerned about them.

‘Turn on virus protection’ keeps popping up in Windows 11

From recent past few weeks, we have seen a search in such kind of threads relating to the issue in user forums. In these cases, users reports that after starting their Windows 11 approximately 4 to 5 minutes later, they receive a notification. The notification mentions, to Turn on virus protection. Look at below image:

False 'Turn on Virus protection' notifications
False ‘Turn on Virus protection’ notifications

After this, when user goes to the Windows Security app to check, everything is in order. There are no pending actions from the Windows Security app itself. Still, these false notifications keeps appearing.

If you are also seeing the same problem on your system, you must check the protection indicators for Windows Security.

For this, you can use the following command in administrative Windows PowerShell:

Get-MpComputerStatus | Select-Object AMRunningMode,AMServiceEnabled,AntivirusEnabled,RealTimeProtectionEnabled,BehaviorMonitorEnabled,IoavProtectionEnabled,NISEnabled,IsTamperProtected,AntivirusSignatureLastUpdated

After executing this command, you will see and expected output like this, which is saying everything is set to true.

And even if you check with the Windows Security app, you will see no action needed. All the tiles in the dashboard for Windows Security having green tick.

If both of these conditions are true, you do not need to worry about this issue. Under the circumstances, we can call this is a fake or false notification issue and classify it as a “bug”.

This might have been introduced after Cumulative updates for July or August. It seems that Microsoft has also acknowledged this issue, and hopefully they would be working on a fix.

If that’s true, we can expect a fix for this annoying issue from upcoming cumulative updates for September. Till then, you can keep ignoring these notifications. Additionally, a feedback (https://aka.ms/AA1324ht) has been submitted to feedback for the same issue. In the meanwhile, you can also upload the feedback, so that this issue gets noticed by Windows engineering team and resolved on priority.

That’s it!

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Kapil Arya
11x Microsoft MVP · Admin

Kapil holds Microsoft MVP title in Windows IT Pro expertise, 11-times in a row (2014-2025). He is 8-times Windows Insider MVP as well, and author of 'Windows Group Policy Troubleshooting' book. In 2015, Microsoft India accomplished him as 'Windows 10 Champion'. Being passionate Windows blogger, he loves to help others on fixing their system issues. Kapil has worked with official Microsoft Community Engagement Team (CET) on several community projects. You can subscribe him for news/updates and fixes for Windows.

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