How to Hide Device Security Area in Windows 10?

The Device Security is a section in the Windows Defender Security Center. This section gives a greater insight into the security feature integrated into your Windows device. It provides the management and status reporting of the security features that are built into your devices. However, you can also hide this section on your system. Many colleges and companies will like to keep the settings minimum for the users. In this article, we will show you methods through which you can easily hide the Device Security area in Windows 10.

The Group Policy Editor is not available in all versions of Windows 10. The Windows 10 Home version does not come with the Group Policy Editor. That is why we have included the Registry Editor method for a similar setting.

Method 1: Using the Local Group Policy Editor

The Group Policy is a Windows feature through which users can configure different types of settings for their operating system. There are many settings in Group Policy Editor for hiding any specific settings in your Settings app. It also has a setting for hiding the Device Security area in the Windows Defender Security Center. If you enable the setting, then this section will no longer appear on the home page of the Windows Security app. It will also not show the icon on the navigation bar on the side of the Settings app.

The requirement for this setting is to have at least Windows 10 version 1803 or Windows Server 2016. Check the below steps and see how it works:

Note: If you are using the Windows Home edition, then skip this method.

1. Open a Run dialog box by pressing the Windows and R keys on your keyboard. Now type “gpedit.msc” in the box and click on the Ok button to open the Local Group Policy Editor.

   

2. You need to navigate to the following path in the Local Group Policy Editor window:

   Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Security\Device security\

   

3. Double-click on the setting named “Hide the Device security area” and it will open up in another window. Then you need to change the toggle option from the Not Configured to the Enabled option.

   

4. Finally, click on the Apply and then the Ok button to save the changes. Mostly, the group policy will automatically update the changes.
5. However, if it does not update the new configurations, then you need to do it manually. Search for command prompt in the Windows search feature. Right-click on it and open it as an administrator.
6. Now type the following command in the Command Prompt (Admin) to force update the group policy changes:

   gpupdate /force

   

   Note: This can also be done by simply restarting your system.

7. You can always enable the Device Security area by changing the toggle option back to Not Configured or Disabled in step 3.

Method 2: Using the Registry Editor

The Registry Editor is another method for hiding the Device Security section of the Windows Defender Security Center. If you already used the Local Group Policy Editor method, then this will already have the value configured. If you are directly using this method, then you need to create the missing keys and value to configure the setting for your system. It is a bit technical compared to the Local Group Policy Editor method, however, by following the below steps you can easily configure it:

1. Open a Run dialog box by pressing the Windows + R key on your keyboard. Now type “regedit” and click on the Ok button to open the Registry Editor. Also, if prompted by UAC (User Account Control) dialog, then click on the Yes button.

   

2. You can also create a backup before making any new changes in the Registry. Click on the File menu in the menu bar and then choose the Export option. Now name the file and select the location for the file. Click on the Save button to save the backup.

   

   Note: You can always recover a backup by clicking on the File > Import option and then selecting the file that you previously saved as backup.

3. You need to navigate to the following path in the Registry Editor window:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender Security Center\Device security

   Note: If any of the keys are missing in the Registry, you can create them by right-clicking on the available key and then choosing the New > Key option.

4. Select the Device security key, then right-click on the right pane, and choose the New > DWORD (32-bit) Value option. Name this newly created value as “UILockdown“.

   

5. Right-click on this value and choose the Modify option. Now change the value data to 1.

   

6. Finally, after all the configurations, make sure you restart the system to apply these new changes.
7. You can always enable the Device Security area again by changing the value data to 0. You can also simply remove the value “UILockdown” from the Registry Editor.