Note: Your computers protection suffers without any anti-virus software installed. It also scans your computer for known worms, harmful software, viruses, and other such programs. MsMpEng.exe - Its role is to scan files for spyware, and quarantine or remove them if they are suspicious. Method I: Ensure that no other Adware, Anti-malware, or anti-virus software is installed or not fully removed When that is happening, it should be restricted/disabled to bring it back to normal use. The Windows Defender scan is getting stuck on a few files while checking malware.

This issue with MsMpEng.exe taking 100% of the hard drive and CPU usually occurs when Windows Defender is scanning the computer for malware.

Windows Defender comes pre-installed on Windows 11 and Windows 10 but is an optional download on older Operating Systems like Windows 7 and 8.

MsMpEng.exe is the core process of the Windows Defender Anti-malware Application.The following sections are the methods that Microsoft recommends to stop the MxMpEng.exe file from causing high hard drive and CPU usage on your computer.

Turn on windows defender windows 7