Windows 10 Security Part 1 :Windows 10 Defender is Microsoft SCEP Client

Windows defender is shipped free of charge with Windows starting Windows 8 to protect the PC against Malware (Viruses, Spyware......etc.). It was mainly geared towards personal computers/Home computers providing adequate malware protection free of charge out of the box. For Enterprises Microsoft had another offering which was Microsoft System Center Endpoint Protection (SCEP) with its policy based templates based on your workload and fully configured and controlled with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager.

Lately i was trying to install Microsoft SCEP on a new Windows 10 RTM Enterprise machine, after pushing the SCEP client the following was noticed:

1. There is no SCEP on the machine !
2. CCMSETUP and Endpointprotection logs showed successfully installation
3. Windows Defender (shipped on windows 10) can't get disabled !
4. All my SCEP policies and settings are applied on the windows defender.
5. When checking the Programs and Features, I noticed that the System Center End Point Protection is installed.                                                                                                                                        
   

It turned out to be that in Windows 10, Microsoft SCEP will manage the built in Defender. No SCEP agent will get installed as previous versions with Microsoft 8. All reporting and Management are coming now from the defender.

I found one article on TechNet referring to this issue for Windows Technical Preview

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt126213.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Hh508770.aspx