Turn on and off antivirus

Question

Is there a way to detect whether there is an antivirus software installed in a machine using C#? I know the Security Center detects antivirus software but how can you detect that in C#?And how to turn it off and on in C#?

Answer 1

How to detect it: See the following question: Detect Antivirus on Windows using C#

How to turn it off and on: As far as I know, there is no simple, common way to turn off anti-virus software. And that's a good thing! Turning off anti-virus software should always be a conscious choice of the user (or the administrator in a corporate environment) and not be something that can be done easily by a third-party product.

Answer 2

To return AntiVirus name as string:

 public static string Antivirus()
    {
        try
        {
            string firewallName = string.Empty;
            // starting with Windows Vista we must use the root\SecurityCenter2 namespace

            using (ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(@"\\" + Environment.MachineName + @"\root\SecurityCenter2", "Select * from AntivirusProduct"))
            {
                foreach (ManagementObject mObject in searcher.Get())
                {
                    firewallName += mObject["displayName"].ToString() + "; ";
                }
            }
            firewallName = RemoveLastChars(firewallName);

            return (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(firewallName)) ? firewallName : "N/A";
        }

        catch
        {
            return "Unknown";
        }
    }
    public static string RemoveLastChars(string input, int amount = 2)
    {
        if (input.Length > amount)
            input = input.Remove(input.Length - amount);
        return input;
    }