



It's worth noting that hiding the icon will not close Windows Defender itself it will still be running in the background, protecting your computer.Ī little strangely, the icon is controlled by a dedicated process, and you'll need to disable this to get rid of it: To hide the icon, you're going to have to delve a little deeper. In fact, the only option that presents itself is to open Windows Defender. You'll notice that if you left- or right-click on the little shield icon, there is no option to hide it.
