MSSense.exe Crashes: Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection Service Executable

Many Windows 10/11 Pro and Server 2012 R2 systems are encountering repeated mssense.exe crashes. It’s the service executable for the Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection Service (“Sense”), found on Pro and higher editions.

When mssense.exe crashes, WerFaultSecure.exe creates a report and a crash dump every time. This can happen every 5-10 minutes and thus impacts your device’s performance negatively to a great extent. Here is a sample mssense.exe event log entry retrieved via the Reliability Monitor:

Source
Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection Service Executable

Summary
Stopped working

Description
Faulting Application Path: C:\Program Files\Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection\MsSense.exe

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: MsSense.exe
Application Version: 10.8210.19041.2006
Application Timestamp: 3f017b42
Fault Module Name: MsSense.dll
Fault Module Version: 10.8210.19041.2130
Fault Module Timestamp: b2119acf
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00000000003edaf5
OS Version: 10.0.19045.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0000
Additional Information 2: 00000000000000000000000000000000
Additional Information 3: 0000
Additional Information 4: 00000000000000000000000000000000

defender atp crash (sense - mssense.exe)

Here’s a screenshot from the System Information tool MSInfo32.exe:

defender atp crash (sense - mssense.exe)

I deleted the service!

As my Windows 10 Pro is a standalone unit, I deleted the service. It’s been five days since I deleted the service, and things are good. Here’s how I deleted the service.



First, I backed up the service by exporting the service registry key to a REG file, using this command:

reg export "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Sense" d:\sense.reg

Then, I deleted the service using this command:

SC.EXE DELETE SENSE

(Alternatively, disabling the service by setting the Start registry value to 4 might also work. But there are chances that the Microsoft Defender Antivirus engine will revert the value.)

That’s it! No more mssense.exe crashes. I decided to leave it that way until Microsoft addresses this issue in a future update.


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Ramesh Srinivasan is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a consecutive ten-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in the Windows Shell/Desktop Experience category, from 2003 to 2012. He loves to troubleshoot and write about Windows. Ramesh founded Winhelponline.com in 2005.

4 thoughts on “MSSense.exe Crashes: Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection Service Executable”

  1. The command doesn’t work for me. When using the cmd (as admin) and running that command to delete the service, I get an “access denied” prompt.

    Reply
  2. Thanks for the quick reply. Already tried command in safe mode long ago. Still didn’t work. Tried again today again.
    I again ran cmd as admin, in safe mode “sc.exe delete sense” which results in this error:
    ” [sc] open service failed 5: Access is denied “.

    Reply

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