[Fixed] Windows 11 Antimalware Service Executable High CPU Usage

What is Antimalware Service Executable?

The Antimalware Service Executable is also showed as MsMpEng.exe in the Task Manager. It is a background process in Windows Defender which is an antivirus program like other third-party protective applications to protect your computer. Like its Windows 10 edition, the Antimalware Service Executable scans and checks menace malware to prevent Windows 11 system from the attacks of various viruses.

How does MsMpEng.exe occupy CPU resources?

Although Antimalware Service Executable can protect your computer, it also consumes your PC resources. Some people find when they check the CPU, MsMsEng.exe takes away large usage on their CPU. Why a security program occupies so much resource?

Two features are running in MsMpEng.exe:

1. Real-Time Scan

Real-Time Scan is a function that will continuously scan files in real-time.

2. Full Scan

Full Scan will scan all files while no matter your computer wakes up from hibernation or connects to the Internet to run daily works. And the key is your system will get into lagging, freezing, and deferred response.

Both scan ways need to take away CPU usage and take time to execute the processes in few minutes or an hour. If this program really devours many CPU resources and even affects daily use, it’s understandable why lots of users will choose to end the process.

How to fix Antimalware Service Executable high memory usage in Windows 11

Thus, in this part, we’ll show 4 methods to help you fix Antimalware Service Executable high memory usage in Windows 11 to improve your PC performance.

1. End Windows Defender Antivirus through Group Policy Editor

Step 1. Press “Windows” + “R” and type gpedit. msc in the search box, and hit “Enter” to open Group Policy Editor.

Step 2. Locate “Windows Defender Antivirus” via the following path：

“Computer Configuration” > “Administrative Templates” > “Windows Components” > “Windows Defender” or “Windows Defender Antivirus”

Step 3. In the right area, press “Extended” and double-click “Turn off Windows Defender Antivirus” and choose “Enabled”, then click “OK”.

2. Turn off Real-Time with Group Policy Editor

Step 1. Press “Windows” + “R” and type gpedit. msc in the search box.

Step 2. Locate the same folder as the first method but click one more folder “Real-Time Protection”.

Step 3. In the right area, double-click “Turn-off real-time protection” and choose “Enabled”.

3. Use the registry to disable Windows Defender

Step 1. Press the “Windows” + “R”, type “regedit” click “OK” or hit “Enter” to open the Windows Registry.

Step 2. In the Registry Editor, go to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender”.

Step 3. Find “DisableAntiSpyware”, double click it and change the value to 1.

4. Exclude Antimalware Service Executable high disk usage from Windows Security

Step 1. Open Windows Settings and click “Update & Security” > “Windows Defender”, you may need to click “Open Windows Defender Security Center”.

Step 2. Click “Virus & threat protection”>” Virus & threat protection settings”, click “Add or remove an exclusion”.

Step 3. Click “+” to add an exclusion, choose “process”.

Step 4. Type “antimalware service executable” and click add.

Further reading: How to get better PC performance

Antimalware Service Executable is just one process that may affect your computer performance, many other processes can lead to the same issue. Thus, we recommend you AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, a powerful and versatile disk/partition manager, to manage your computer constantly and keep your computer in high performance.

Users can partition their disks and transfer installed programs from a C drive to other drives to release more free space for their system. And if you’re using an SSD, SSD partition alignment is also important to improve computer performance.

1. Partition your disk and move programs from the C drive to another drive.

If your disk only has one partition, you can directly create a new partition from that partition. And move installed programs to that new partition to release C drive space.

Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro, right-click C drive and choose “Create Partition”.

Step 2. Adjust the size of the new drive and click “OK”.

Step 3. Click “Proceed” and “Apply” to confirm the operation.

Then you can start to move installed programs. AOMEI Partition Assistant can transfer installed these programs without reinstalling. It can automatically detect all relevant files that the program needs in the entire disk to ensure it can run successfully after migration.

Step 1. Launch Partition Assistant, click “Free up” in the top menu, then select the “App Mover” feature.

Step 2. In the new window, you can see the information on all partitions Select one partition that you wish to move and click "Next".

Step 3. Choose applications and select the target location, then click "Move".

Step 4. In the new window, please confirm forcibly closing running applications when moving starts. Click "OK" to begin the process.

Warning: To ensure the apps run properly, please don't move or delete files in the source and target directory.

If you need, you can also move installed programs to another disk or external disk with this convenient software.

2. SSD partition alignment

Step 1. Install and launch the AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro, find the SSD you want to optimize, and right-click one of its partitions, select “Advanced” > “Partition Alignment”

Step 2. In the mini window, you can set partition 4K alignment (4096 Sector). And click OK to continue.

Note: If the program shows "The current partition is already optimized thus there’s no need to align it again", then it means the partition has been aligned. You can continue to check other partitions of this SSD.

Step 3. Finally, click “Apply” and “Proceed” to commit the pending operation.

To sum up

You can try 4 ways as we show you to fix Windows 11 Antimalware Service Executable High CPU to improve your PC performance. The further methods as we show you from AOMEI Partition Assistant are pragmatic in any suitable computer without complex operations. This tool can even convert MBR system disk to GPT for Windows 11 upgrade, clone disk/partition, resize/delete/merge/split/format partition… You can explore more methods to improve computer performance according to your PC with this multifunctional tool.